There has been a significant year-on-year rise in the number of containers handled at Chattogram port in the three months till October while there was a drop in the overall handling of cargo and ships.

The port handled a total of 8.30 lakh TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers, both goods-laden ones and empty, between August and October.

This is 10.21 percent higher than the 7.54 lakh TEUs handled in the same period last year.

Of the 8.30 lakh TEUs, 4.50 lakh TEUs had arrived, while the rest were destined to go abroad.

According to Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), the data was a compilation of the number of containers handled at the port's jetties, Kamalapur Inland Container Depot in Dhaka and Pangaon Inland Container Terminal in Keraniganj.

The port users opined that a significant number of containers that could not be moved for political turmoil since mid-July were transported later, and thus the volume increased in subsequent months.

A container congestion arose at the port yards due to the political unrest, said Muntasir Rubayat, head of operations at GBX Logistics, a leading feeder vessel operating firm.

This caused delays in the unloading and loading of cargo and led to the formation of a long queue of vessels, he told The Daily Star.

Many export-laden containers could not be brought to the port from factories and private inland container depots (ICD) due to disruptions in vehicular movement on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway, he said.

As the situation slowly improved, it was possible to bring these to the port in the following weeks and thus there was a gradual increase in the flux of containers and vessels in the following months.

Port data shows that container throughput rose at the port and Kamalapur ICD in August and September.

In terms of the overall handling of cargo, including containerised and bulk cargo, the port saw a 5.18 percent year-on-year decrease in the three months.

A total of 2.91 crore tonnes of cargo were handled through the port's jetties and outer anchorage from August to October.

It was over 3.07 crore tonnes in the same period last year.

There was a decrease in the import of cargo in bulk in August and September, said Syed Md Arif, president of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association.

This is due to the fact that importers who made small-scale purchases were finding it hard to open letters of credit for a crisis of US dollars, he said.

Even those who usually make large-scale purchases imported goods in small quantities and for this, they hired comparatively small-sized bulk carriers.

There was an increase in the number of bulk carriers that had arrived in September and October, Arif added.

A total of 966 vessels arrived in the last three months, whereas it was 1,023 in the same period last year.