"The world's most congested" port requires such goods to be taken away from the yard, and the congestion intensifies and the transfer to Colombo takes 21 days!

Due to congestion all the year round, Chittagong has been jokingly called "the world's first congestion" by the industry. With the approach of Ramadan, a large number of goods are influx and importers fail to pick up the goods in time, and the accumulation of containers has made the congestion in Chittagong even worse!

Recently, the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) of Bangladesh has increased the storage fees for dangerous goods containers (DG) by four times, in order to hope that DG importers can handle and clear more and more goods in the port in a timely manner.

As more and more dangerous goods may cause a disaster like the Beirut port, the CPA authority issued a notice on the 23rd, requiring importers, settlement and freight forwarders to take away DG goods, otherwise they will face effective April 1. Fine.

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The notice said, "...recently we noticed that the importer's delivery of dangerous goods containers was delayed. Putting this country's main seaport at risk."

CPA tariff supervisor Enamul Karim wrote: "We require all relevant personnel to immediately remove dangerous goods from the port yard."

He added that if the situation does not improve before the end of the month, "dangerous goods will be charged 4 times the rent." "This is very important for the safety and unhindered operation of the Chittagong Port."

Importers need to store goods including basic commodities before Ramadan in mid-April and Eid al-Fitr in May. Because the rent at the port yard is much lower than the rent in the outside warehouse, importers prefer to store the port yard. Used as a normal warehouse.

A senior CPA official stated: “The port yard cannot be used as a warehouse”, adding that most consignees are unaware of the risks of storing hazardous chemicals on the yard.

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The official said that usually about 400-500 dangerous goods containers are stored in the port yard, but now this number has increased significantly, and the devastating incident at the port of Beirut has forced the CPA to take measures to reduce the presence of dangerous goods.

He added: "The government has also expressed concern about this issue and instructed us to ensure port security."
This month, the Chittagong Port Authority doubled the rent for FCL containers because the number of containers in the port yard increased and importers were unwilling to retrieve the goods here. Since then, the number of containers in the yard has declined, but last week, there were still about 36,002 teu containers in the port yard, and its total storage capacity was 49,018 teu.

However, the shipping company serving the port warned that the number of containers in the yard has decreased, but it has not yet eased the congestion of the berths. The shipping company Hapag-Lloyd said in an announcement: “Please note that due to the increase in ships waiting at the Chittagong port, cargo entering Bangladesh is experiencing a tight capacity.

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"At present, the waiting time for the feeder line is 5-6 days, and it is expected to increase in the next few weeks. In turn, at the same time, this has led to longer transit times in Colombo than usual."

Therefore, please note that due to the current situation, it will take approximately 21 days for cargo to be unloaded in Colombo via Chittagong, and it is expected to increase further. Based on the above factors and plans to ship in the future, Hapag-Lloyd suggests choosing alternative routes.