In January 2023, The Freight Volume Of Chittagong Dropped Significantly

Chittagong is the main seaport of Bangladesh, handling 92% of the country's maritime import and export trade. The situation in the first month of this year was not good. Compared with January last year, the overall performance of the port has declined significantly.

In January 2023, the import processing capacity alone decreased by 33% to 87984 TEU, while the total volume of Chittagong decreased by 25% to 197782 TEU.

Stakeholders in the port industry are optimistic that the new year may start with a good performance of the port, because the global economic crisis has weakened the performance of the port after the outbreak of the Ukrainian war last year.

However, as the government of Bangladesh continued to take austerity measures to curb foreign exchange expenditure, imports did not reach the peak. Throughout January, a large number of terminals in Chittagong were often empty.

In general, Chittagong is known for its long-term congestion. Ships wait for days or even weeks at the outer anchorage before berthing, while the port terminal is still close to its processing capacity.

Due to the decline in imports, the total storage capacity of Chittagong Port Terminal has exceeded 53000 TEUs, leaving only about 30000 TEUs at present.

A senior official of Chittagong said that in recent months, the processing capacity of the port has increased, but the number of ships arriving at the port has decreased. Therefore, the dock is often empty, and ships can berth without waiting at the outer anchorage.

"This is very unusual for a port like Chittagong," he said.

At the same time of the sharp decline in imports, 19 inland container warehouses in Chittagong also suffered serious losses due to the decline in throughput. These warehouses are responsible for handling 38 kinds of imported containers and almost all export containers and empty containers.

Ruhul Amin Sikder (Biplob), Secretary-General of Bangladesh Inland Container Warehouse Association (BICDA), said that these warehouses had a record of handling 25000 to 26000 TEUs of imported containers in some months, while the average handling capacity in 2021 was 20000 TEUs.

He pointed out that by 2022, this number will fall below 16000 TEUs, and further fall to about 13000 TEUs in January this year.

Biplob said: "In fact, we suffered losses all year last year and are still continuing. Our current business mainly depends on the income from handling export containers."