Due to exporters’ pre-Eid cargo dispatch from garment factories, Chattogram’s private inland container depots (ICDs) are overflowing with exported containers.
The nation’s ready-made clothing manufacturers began shipping their export cargoes to the 21 private ICDs around 13 days ago, usually a week or two ahead of the planned shipment dates.
This pattern is observed annually before the Eid break; nevertheless, stakeholders stated that this year a few additional reasons have contributed to the increased shipment demand and severe container congestion in the ICDs.
They listed the following as contributing factors: the rise in export cargo volume in recent months; the effect of the cargo backlog resulting from last month’s two-day operational closure of Chattogram Port due to Cyclone Remal; and delays in vessel arrivals caused by congestion in transshipment ports in Singapore and Malaysia.
When truck and covered van fares rose and cars began having to wait an extra two or three days for cargo offloading at the ICDs, a transport crisis struck the commercial zone.
According to the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA), as of Saturday afternoon, there were around 15,553 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of export containers laying at the 21 ICDs, a significant increase from the 8,000 TEUs on any given day.
The number of total containers, including export, import and empty, crossed 78,000 while the 21 ICDs together can store 90,000 such containers.
Until Saturday noon, over 4,000 trucks and covered vans carrying export goods from Dhaka and other parts of the country have been seen waiting in queue to enter into different ICDs.
90 per cent of all export cargoes from the nation that are carried through Chattogram Port are first packed into containers in these ICDs before being sent to the port; the remaining 10 per cent are sent directly from the export processing zones and from Kamalapur ICD.
