A glut of fresh fruits held up at the port
With the eye on Ramadan, Jannat Enterprise, a Dhaka-based importer, brought in about 250 tonnes of dates from Egypt in 20 refrigerated (reefer) containers that arrived at the Chattogram port 15 days ago.
As of yesterday, on the second day of Ramadan, the importer was yet to get the dates, whose consumption sees a spike during the Muslim holy month, on hand.
Including Jannat Enterprise's dates, more than 57,000 tonnes of fresh fruits like apple, date, orange, grape in about 2,300 twenty-feet equivalent units (TEUs) of reefer containers were lying at the port against the capacity of 1,620 TEUs.
The staggered release of the imported perishable goods, mostly fresh fruits, from the port, means there is a good chance of supply shortage in the market during Ramadan.
And the reason the goods are stuck at the port is the countrywide movement control order since March 26 to flatten the curve on coronavirus that has left delivery decelerating to a snail's pace and offices firmly shut.
The reefer containers used to transport perishable are now posing a big challenge for the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA)as it desperately looks to solve the acute container congestion.
Since the reefer containers are kept at the upper rows, delays in discharging them holds back the overall discharge of other import containers, resulting in overstay of the vessels at the port's jetties, said Ajmir Hossain Chowdhury, assistant general manager of Mediterranean Shipping Company.
And such overstay at the jetties are forcing the port authority to make berthing delays, increasing vessels' waiting time at the outer anchorage, he added.
For instance, a vessel Cape Quest carrying 1,285 TEUs of import containers, including 62 TEUs reefer ones, got a berth at NCT jetty No. 3 on April 24 after a nine-day wait.
Only 482 TEUs could be unloaded from the vessel until yesterday morning as the reefer ones could not be discharged due to shortage of plug-in capacity in the yards, said officials of the ship's local agent Sea Consortium.
The reefer containers need to be constantly plugged into a power source and the CPA can supply electricity to at best 2,100 TEUs.
Though the overall delivery from the port improved in the last few days after a concerted effort by the finance and shipping ministries, the reefer containers lying at the port are causing delays in timely unloading from vessels, according to CPA Member Md Zafar Alam.
So desperate is the CPA that it recently sent letters to the leaders of Bangladesh Fresh Fruits Importer Association and Chattogram Fruit Trader Association to insist their members to take away their imported consignments.
But the matter is out of the fruit importers' hands.
Borhan Uddin Sikder, Jannat Enterprise's C&F agent, said due to flight disruption for the global coronavirus pandemic suppliers are failing to send the original bill of lading (B/L), which is needed for getting delivery order from the shipping agents.
And Jannat Enterprise's supplier is yet to do so, he added.
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