Supply chain buckles amid transport shortage

As Bangladesh enters the second month of lockdown over coronavirus, manufacturers and retailers are worried about the impending shortage of food and essential goods amid the shortage of transports and workers.

Industry insiders said that they are struggling to maintain the supply chain uninterrupted as presence of trucks and covered-vans to the street became drier thanks to the lockdown which forced truckers and workers stay at home.     

If the lockdown lengthen further, price of essential commodities will shoot up day by day, feared the traders. 

Before Covid-19 outbreak, Abul Kalam, an onion, ginger and garlic trader in capital’s Kawran Bazar’s wholesale market sold 5 to 7 trucks of spices every day to the retailers. Now his business is downsized to one or two trucks as flow of spices to capital from northern part of the country almost became strangled.

Fare of transport doubled because of non-availability of truckers and workers as people are panicked with this pandemic, said Kalam.

Kalam said: “Sudden blow of lockdown made the market volatile and hiked prices of the essentials. Panic buying among the consumers apprehending shortage of supplies also contributed to price spiral. As there was a gap between supply and demand so retailers are unable to restock amid massive disruptions to the supply chain”

Tajul Islam, member secretary of Bangladesh Truck-Covered-van Goods Transport Owner-Workers Association, said there are nearly one lakh trucks lying idle across the country as drivers and workers went to home amid lockdown.

“Some of our drivers and workers are facing harassment from the local people while transporting goods. Some of them were even beaten up” he added.

Talking with The Business Post on Saturday Md. Omar Faruk, focal person of Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) said, “We are running out of capacity as 46145 TEU’s of containers out of 49018 TEU’s remain piled up in port. Importers are not taking away their containers from CPA citing the shortage of transport and storage capacity.”

Chattogram Port Authority said there are some 19 container ships at the outer anchorage waiting to be offloaded onto feeder vessels and 17 vessels are waiting at the dock for unloading goods.

“The pace of offloading containers from ships slowed down because of lack of space in container terminal. We asked the importers to receive their goods as soon as they are unloaded from ships,” said Faruk.

Chaotic situation prevailed from ports to factories, warehouses to doorsteps of the shoppers as supply chain is rocked by shortage of workers and transporters. Disruption is also evident in the agriculture industry as farmers are failing to reach the markets of the country because of lack of transport.

Asif Iqbal, executive director of Meghna Group, a business conglomerate, told The Business Post that as the country is on lockdown, initially we faced problems in supplying our products because of labour shortage. Now we managed to overcome the problem. We have in store enough stock of finished products which could be supplied to retailers before Eid-ul-Fitr.”

“We could not supply our products to the locked down places where local administration is not letting our transport to enter that particular place,” he added.

He also said, “We already placed order to our suppliers for raw materials to keep the supply chain smooth. This unprecedented situation actually is taking toll on overall supply chain around the world as shipments are delayed. Our milk powder is now stuck in Singapore for many days because of coronavirus situation. ”

“As part of reaching the doorsteps of consumers, we will start open truck sale from Sunday in less than Manufacturer’s Recommended Price (MRP) with 18 essential commodities— sugar, flour, semolina, mastered oil, edible oil, water, lentil, salt, milk power, turmeric powder, chili powder, rice, salt etc at the six major places of Dhaka city throughout the Ramadan” he added.

Md. Zakir Hossen, AGM, (regulatory affairs) of Popular Pharma said “We didn’t face major problem in supplying our products to the market as government put drug-laden vehicles out of lockdown purview. We are facing some problems on Chattogram port in taking delivery of raw materials as port is hamstrung by poor workforce.”

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, government declared nationwide lockdown from March 26 to stop spreading of deadly Covid-19 as it so far it has infected 8,790 and killed 175 after first the detection of the virus in Bangladesh on March 8.

sh/wi/nm