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A ship will leave the Chattogram port carrying cargo on Friday, and head directly – for the first time in Bangladesh’s history – to the port of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
The vessel MV Amo, carrying 600 TEUs of containers from a Chinese port, arrived at the outer anchorage of the Chattogram port on Wednesday, Chattogram Port Authority’s (CPA) Deputy Secretary Nasir Uddin told The Business Port.
He added that the ship will pick up another 300 TEUs of export goods containers from the Chattogram port, and then leave the NCT jetty on Friday. It is scheduled to arrive at the Liverpool port on June 12.
MV Amo is also scheduled to visit the Rotterdam port of Netherlands.
According to industry insiders, the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a crisis in the global shipping sector, complicating the import and export of goods to and from Bangladesh.
To alleviate this crisis, buyers of Ready-made garments in Europe and shipping companies took the initiative to operate direct shipping with Chattogram, the prime port of Bangladesh.
As part of this process, the port authorities allowed direct shipping from Chittagong to various European routes, avoiding transshipment ports.
The CPA has given route permits to a total of three ships to operate the Chittagong-Liverpool-Rotterdam routes. Since last February, the CPA has also allowed three ships to operate from Chattogram to two European ports in Italy, including Ravenna.
Moinul Islam, a shipping agent for the Liverpool-bound MV Amo – which is operated by Phoenix Shipping, said, “RMG products make up 90 per cent of the 300 TEUs containers the vessel will transport from Chittagong, while the rest are leather and jute products.
Adding that the ships bound for Liverpool via Chattogram will arrive at the Chattogram port from China, Moinul said, “It will take half of the usual time for Bangladesh to send goods using this route, and costs will be around 40 per cent less.”
Industry insiders say it usually takes around 45 days for Bangladesh to ship goods from Chattogram to Liverpool through transshipment port, but the new direct route will cut this time to only 20-23 days.