Truckers are now charging up to US$300 to carry a container to inland container depots in Chittagong from Dhaka and elsewhere amid heavy rush to make shipments of export containers ahead of Eid ul Azha linked holidays starting on Friday, 8 July.
Eid, the second largest festival of the Muslim community, is slated for 10 July thus the factories will remain shut for nearly a week, until next Friday.
Shippers say the truck rent was only US$50 only a week back thus charging nearly six times taking the advantage of the shipment rush is illogical.
On the other hand, truckers say they need to stay four to five days to unload cargoes, on the off docks, they brought from factories located in various parts of the country.
Chittagong has 19 privately owned off docks that handle most of the export cargoes. Usually, cargoes are brought by trucks or covered vans to the off docks where they are stuffed into containers before being sent to the port jetties for loading to the vessels.
Today (6 July), hundreds of trucks were seen queuing in front of the off docks to unload the cargoes they were carrying. Truckers say they were staying there for four to five days in queue to unload cargoes compared to the usual stay of one day only.
Shippers say off docks are failing to handle the increased volume of cargoes and now the situation has worsened as the additional loads are created ahead of Eid. Out of 19 off docks, 13 handle apparel shipments but they are unable to deal with US$42 billion in annual apparel exports.
In the just-concluded fiscal year 2021-22, Bangladesh exported goods worth US$52 billion registering a 34% growth over the year.
The off docks have the capacity to handle 70,000 TEU annually. Shippers say the number of off docks needs to be increased soon to handle the growing loads.
“These small numbers of off docks are unable to handle the growing export-import activities in the country,” said Rafayet Ullah, a Dhaka-based garment exporter.
He added that every year, truck rent shots up ahead of Eid as holiday linked rush creates long queue of trucks in the off-dock gates.
Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general of Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association, said the problem would not be resolved until new off docks are established or the capacity of the existing off docks is enhanced.
Sharar Nayel
Asia Correspondent
