Position of cement factory owners and ship owners will be reviewed

Ship owners and cement factory owners, who have long been embroiled in disputes over transport fares and other issues, have agreed to review the existing practice and rent of transporting imported cement clinkers through from Chittagong port.

A meeting between the two sides was held on Sunday in the presence of senior officials of the Department of Shipping in Dhaka on the contentious issues.

Md. Manjurul Kabir, Chief Engineer of the Department of Shipping said, ``the two parties agreed to review their existing position and should reach a settlement over the dispute in mid November.”

“In meeting, the issues between them were discussed; the distance in the discussion seems to be decreasing a bit. Later, they will come to a unanimous decision on transport fare ‍and other Issues, he said.

There has been a long-running dispute with the Water Transportation Cell WTC, controlling authority of lighter ships with cement manufacturers over the transportation of cement clinkers by water way from Chittagong port. The dispute escalated when everything came to a head at the end of the Corona epidemic lockdown.

The fare for transporting per tonne goods by river from Chittagong port to Dhaka was TK 548. Following the lockdown, WTC reduced the fare by TK 133 to TK 415. But Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association BCMA, which imports the largest amount of goods in the country, has demanded that the rent per tonne be fixed at TK 350.

Cement clinker is the single most imported product in the country, which BCMA claims to be a quarter of the total imports in the country. The country produces about 40 million tons of cement per year, of which 100% raw materials are imported. Three-quarters of these raw materials come through the Chittagong port, which is unloaded from the outer anchorage of the port by lighter ships and flows to the country's cement factories by river.

WTC, an affiliated body of the Department of Shipping controls the transportation of imported goods from the outer anchorage of Chittagong port to the water routes of the country. The WTC allocates ships on a daily basis based on the needs of importers. Out of about 2200 ships in the country, about 1500 are under the control of WTC.

Industrial owners, including the cement manufacturers have their own ships, numbering about 500, which are not enlisted with WTC.

According to the BCMA, the country imports about 3 million tons of raw materials for making cement, including clinker, in every month, for which the owners deploy about 400 ships. But transportation with these ships is not enough; the ship has to be rented from private owners.

But at present the rule is that cement owners have to rent at least half of the ships from WTC.

In the wake of various incidents, including clashes between sailors backed by the two sides in deep-sea, in separate letters to the chairman of the Department of Shipping on 6 September and 30 September, BCMA the apex body of cement manufacturers made two demands including the abolition of the WTC and reduction of ship fares.

According to the letter, the industrialists are suffering due to the monopoly of WTC in transporting goods from the port, contrary to the free trade policy and taking extra fare.

In such circumstances, on Sunday the meeting was held between BCMA leaders and WTC directors at the Department of Shipping where Director General of the Department of Shipping Commodore Abu Jafar Md. Jalaluddin was present.