Dwaipayan Barua

Operations at the country’s premier Chattogram sea port have resumed after around 35 hours with a countrywide work abstention enforced by a section of logistics service providers being called off yesterday afternoon.

The transport operators’ countrywide strike yesterday affected export and import of goods at a time when businesses have been attempting to make a recovery from the fallouts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Write-off loans rose slightly in the second quarter of 2021, although they remain at the lower level thanks to the eases of rules because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a rare development, Chattogram port has been able to allow container ships to berth faster upon arrival over the past 40 days, enabling brisk delivery of imports.

Although  the overall implementation of the annual development programme (ADP)  marked a rise in the first two months of the new fiscal year compared to  the corresponding period a year before, the ADP  implementation in the health service sector is still lagging.

The steelmaker initiated the massive expansion plan in 2016 and invested Tk 2,390 crore to establish the state-of-the-art plant, which is the second of its kind in the world.

Over a month has passed but 15 Bangladeshi importers are yet to know the fate of a vessel, which was transporting around 11,000 tonnes of their steel products and abandoned by its crew for “water ingress and sinking” off the coast of Myanmar.

An overall decline in the country’s foreign trade last year for the pandemic brought the Chattogram port down nine places in the latest ranking of Lloyd’s List “One Hundred Container Ports 2021” analysing annual container transport of 2020.

The Chattogram port has slipped nine notches down in 2020 to rank 67th in terms of annual throughput of containers among 100 top busiest ports across the world, according to the 2021 edition of Lloyd’s List One Hundred Ports.

The construction of the Bay Terminal, a long-awaited project of the Chittagong port, is gaining momentum after slowing down due to the coronavirus pandemic as the government looks to complete it by 2024.

Garment manufacturers no longer want to take delivery of import consignments from private inland container depots (ICDs) alleging it took up too much time while the charges were exorbitant.

Over 3,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of import-laden containers bound for Bangladesh are stranded at the Indian port of Krishnapatnam as the route’s two sole vessels no longer had permission to berth at the Chattogram port.

Bangladesh’s economy may continue to suffer under the Covid-19 pandemic throughout the current fiscal year due to vaccine shortages and the government’s incapability to enforce a strict lockdown, said a recently released Fitch Solutions report.

Private investment in Bangladesh fell to its lowest level in 14 years in the last fiscal year owing to the lingering uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic and continuing structural weaknesses.

There has been a remarkable decline in the number of export-laden containers that were about to overwhelm private inland container depots (ICDs) early last month.

Another privately built jetty has come to the aid of the Chattogram port as it allowed the country’s largest seaport to use the facility to berth bulk vessels carrying heavy items.

A temporary decision to give priority berthing to Colombo-bound vessels at Chattogram port amid a pileup of export containers at private off docks last month is now causing berthing delays for other vessels destined for the two other transhipment ports.

A National Board of Revenue’s (NBR’s) temporary permission to shift import-laden containers from the Chattogram port to private inland container depots (ICDs) as a decongestion effort seems to have borne no fruit.

A Colombo-bound vessel carrying export containers has been kept impounded at the Chattogram port’s outer anchorage for the last eight days by Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) following a High Court order.

Import containers are piling up at an alarming rate at Chattogram port due to the worst delivery during the Eid holidays and the subsequent poor release of goods for the fresh lockdown, which could cause congestion anew.