Home ›› 13 Mar 2022 ›› Front
The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has raised tariffs on containers kept at its yard for more than 20 days to ensure that one-third of space remains vacant to cut container congestion at Bangladesh’s premier seaport.
CPA said the new tariff would be effective from Tuesday but noted that it would reconsider if there’s adequate vacant space in the yard.
Chittagong Port has a capacity of about 49,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) containers. According to international standards, one-third of the yard has to be kept vacant for the regular operation of the port. But it is not possible to maintain this standard at Chittagong Port most of the time as many importers leave their goods in the port yard.
The port authorities levy extra tariffs from time to time if there is a risk of congestion.
Port sources said CPA’s announcement on March 4 encouraged traders to take container delivery. Last week, there were more than 37,000 TEUs containers in the port yard, while on Saturday, the number fell to about 34,000 TEUs.
Port Secretary Mohammad Omar Faruque said they would review the situation again on March 14. “We’ll reconsider revising the rent if one-third or so of the yard is vacant,” he said.
The existing tariff structure allows importers to keep a container at the port for four days free of charge after unloading from the ship. The importer has to pay $6 and $12 per 20 TEU and 40 TEU container for the next seven days. For the next nine days, the importer has to pay $24 for a 20 TEU container and $48 for a 40 TEU container per day.
From Tuesday, the tariff on containers kept at the yard for more than 20 days will go up fourfold, the CPA said. After 30 days, unreleased containers will be moved to the auction shed.
Bangladesh is seeing an increase in imports ahead of Ramadan and many importers are using port sheds as warehouses, leading to container congestion, said Faruque.
On March 4, the port authorities announced an increase in rent to be levied only on Full Container Load (FCL) cargos, which account for about 95 per cent of the containers coming through the Chittagong Port. The rest of the containers at the port are Less Container Load (LCL) cargo.
Usually, FCL cargo is the cargo of a single importer while LCL is a cargo of more than one importer in a container.
FCL cargo is taken directly to the importer’s warehouse after unloading from ships in almost all the ports, but in Chittagong Port, most of the FCL cargo is kept in the port yard.
Containers of 36 types of goods imported through Chittagong Port are kept in privately-owned Inland Container Depot located outside the port, which is about 23 per cent of the total containers.
“We decided to impose an additional tariff to improve the situation,” Faruque said, adding that they would reconsider the decision if importers removed containers from the port.
