Bangladesh Chittagong Port Authority urges to double Inland container depots for making business easy
Source：Financial Express
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Dhaka
Update Time：2021/06/05
The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has recommended doubling the number of private inland container depots (ICDs) to facilitate the delivery of imported goods from the off-docks and make doing business easy.
It urged the stakeholders concerned to invest more in setting up of the private ICDs in the Chittagong port as 20-25 more ICDs are needed to keep the export-import activities uninterrupted.
In a recent meeting, stakeholders like exporters, importers, customs officials and representatives from Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association (BICDA) also agreed with the CPA's proposal to mitigate congestion in the port.
Currently, there are 18 private ICDs, adjacent to the Chattogram port, which collectively handle 100 per cent of the export containers and 23 per cent of the import containers of the country.
The CPA has long been urging the NBR to allow private ICDs to handle more import products to ease congestion in the port.
However, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) are not willing to get released the imported goods from the private ICDs due to higher charges compared to that of the CPA and also for the time-consuming process.
BICDA president Nurul Qayyum Khan, however, said they handle only 38 types of imported products and RMG is not in the list.
"The private ICDs are handling 100 per cent export products and helping maintain uninterrupted supply chain for the export-oriented sector," he said.
Investors are not willing to invest in ICDs due to poor return on investment, he said.
Establishing each of the ICDs requires an investment worth Tk 4.0 to 5.0 billion and during the last 14 years since 2007, no one invested in this sector, he added.
Two of the 18 ICDs have already become sick and were looking for investors to sell those out, he added.
He said the ICDs' handling charges remained the same during the last eight years although shipping charge, cost of labour and transportation cost increased substantially.
He said the private ICDs are not interested to handle the sensitive and high-duty products.
Source: https://www.financialexpress.com/