CPA backtracks from earlier decision

The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) on Monday backtracked on its decision to levy extra charges on containers stored in its yard for over 20 days.  

“We withdrew the additional charges since the yard now has adequate space,” said CPA Secretary Mohammed Omar Faruque.

Many importers use port sheds as warehouses, leading to container congestion, prompting the CPA to impose higher tariffs.

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 Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (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.

CPA on March 4 said the rent would be hiked four-fold after a 20-day period.

Chittagong Port has a capacity of about 49,000 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.

Chittagong Port handled around 33 million TEUs containers in the last calendar year. On Monday, there were 33,000 TEUs containers in the port yard.

“The decision to increase tariffs has been reconsidered after the importers removed a significant number of the long-stored containers from the port,” Faruque said on Monday.

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.