Container handling plunges to six-year low in April
The Chattogram port handled 86,783 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers in April, the cheapest single month throughput in six years, as the coronavirus pandemic put a brake on global and domestic trade.
Last month, the country's premier port handled 53.76 % fewer containers, both inbound and outbound, weighed against March, when 1,87,551 TEUs of containers went in and out through the port.
The country's import and export experienced a decline in January following coronavirus outbreak in China and the deadly bug had a direct effect on the port's cargo handling.
The cargo handling situation slightly improved in March after Chinese factories and ports started to reopen in late February. However when the virus spread through Europe and the US, the major destinations of Bangladesh's garment exports, the foreign sales nosedived in late March and the major hit was felt in April.
The quantity of export containers, which were shipped to the vessels from the port, plunged 76.84 % to 14,744 TEUs in April from 63,648 TEUs in March.
Unloading of import containers from the vessels plummeted 41.90 % 71,986 TEUs against 123,903 TEUs in March.
Shipping liners blamed the overall fall in global trade caused by the pandemic for such a plunge in container throughput.
Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), among the world's leading container shipping lines and the second largest in transporting containerised cargo to and from Bangladesh, faced a noticeable drop in container transport last month.
The operator usually transports on average more than 10,000 TEUs of import containers and a lot more than 6,500 TEUs of export containers every month through the Chattogram port.
In April, it transported 4,538 TEUs import containers and 1,138 TEUs export containers.
Many foreign buyers, including Verner, Walmart, Primark, JC Penney and Adidas either cancelled or placed on hold their orders bringing down the exports, said Md Ajmir Hossain Chowdhury, assistant general manager for businesses of MSC.
Overall, cargo handling in the port also reduced.
In March, 1.03 crore tonnes of cargoes, both containerised and bulk, were handled by the port. It was 70 lakh tonnes in April.
The port handled 257 vessels last month, down from 366 in March, 364 in February and 357 in January.
Port officials blame the acute container and vessel congestion for the indegent container handling in April.
There were enough imports last month but due to the space scarcity at the port, the containers had to be stuck on the vessels in the ocean, which impacted the overall container handling.
The port had not been closed even for an individual hour regardless of the countrywide shutdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak, said Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) Member Md Zafar Alam.
"The export might have been hit by the fall in global trade however the import was ample before Ramadan," Alam said, adding that most of the import containers cannot be unloaded promptly as the vessels had to hold back in the sea because of the container congestion.
A lot more than 20,000 TEUs of import containers that arrived last month cannot be unloaded because they were stuck in the sea.
If they could be unloaded timely, the overall container throughput could have been higher, said port officials.
