Private ICDs overwhelmed with export containers

The private inland container depots (ICDs) in Chattogram are overwhelmed with export containers due to advance dispatch of cargoes by the exporters ahead of Eid vacation in garment factories.

Some of the apparel manufacturers have already closed their production units for Eid-ul-Azha while some will shut their doors today.

Around 10 days ago, the readymade garment factories from across the country started sending their export cargoes to the 21 private ICDs one or two weeks before the scheduled shipment dates.

This trend is seen every year before Eid vacation, but this year few more factors have caused this extra pressure of shipment and acute container congestion in the ICDs, stakeholders opined.

The factors include increased flow of export cargoes in recent months, impact of cargo backlog created after the two-day operational closure in Chattogram port due to cyclone Remal last month and delays in vessel arrival for congestion in transshipment ports in Singapore and Malaysia, they said.

A transport crisis hit the business zone when fares of truck and covered vans doubled and vehicles started waiting for two or three additional days for unloading of cargoes at the ICDs.

Until Saturday afternoon, some 15,553 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of export containers were lying at the 21 ICDs, much higher from 8,000 TEUs of any regular day, according to the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA).

The number of total containers, including export, import and empty, crossed 78,000 while the 21 ICDs together have the capacity to 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 for entering into different ICDs.

Ninety percent of the country's total export cargoes shipped through Chattogram Port are stuffed into containers in these ICDs before sending those containers to the port while rest 10 percent are sent from Kamalapur ICD as well as directly from the export processing zones.

Nasir Uddin Chowdhury, chairman of the standing committee on port and shipping of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said most of the garment factories will remain close for a week or more for the Eid-ul-Azha festival and that is why they plan to send their export cargoes to the ICDs much earlier before the vacation starts in order to ensure timely shipment during the vacation.

He admitted that the number of export cargoes has risen since May.

The covered vans are facing additional delays because of a lack of labourers at the ICDs to handle the containers, forcing the exporters to bear the extra cost of overstays.

Refuting the allegation, Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general of Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association, said the ICDs face an unusual increase in export cargoes before every Eid vacation and they are working round the clock to cope with the pressure.

He said a number of export containers, which are ready for shipment, cannot be timely sent to the port due to delayed arrival of vessels at the port, which is also choking the ICDs.

Moreover, there are shortage of empty containers required for stuffing the export cargoes mainly for container backlog at transshipment ports resulted from the Red Sea crisis.

Muntasir Rubayat, a leader of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association, said there is delay in arrival of feeder vessels due to two to three days of berthing delay in Singapore and Malaysia.

There is shortage of empty containers as mother vessels are taking almost a month of additional round trip between the transshipment ports and Europe as they are forced to reroute through Cape of Good Hope of Africa to avoid the Red Sea passage, he said.

Executives of different leading ICDs, however, said the pressure has already started receding from Saturday and it would improve within the next few days.