The export cargoes remained stranded at the private inland container depots (ICDs) in Chattogram due to lack of pre-assigned feeder vessels at the seaport.
This is creating a backlog of huge containers at the ICDs, badly affecting the shippers, the private ICD sources said.
They said the situation has been created as the main line operators (MLOs) were giving priority to the Europe and USA routes from China over Bangladesh.
As of Thursday, a total of 12,223 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) of export items remained stranded at the 19 private ICDs, which is almost double than that of the normal stock.
On the other hand, the depots have 33,607 TEUs empty containers as of Thursday, according to statistics prepared by the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA), a group of 19 privately-owned off-docks.
"We're not getting feeder vessels that we had contracted previously to carry our export containers," Mr. Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general at the BICDA, told the FE over phone.
He said there are many feeder vessels at Chaottagm port, but those are not previously assigned with the concerned parties to connect with mother vessels, either from the Port of Colombo or Port of Singapore.
Shipping executives in Bangladesh alleged that the MLOs have been giving priority to China over Bangladesh.
They explained that the China, Europe and USA routes are much more lucrative for them than Bangladesh.
The short-term freight rates from China to North Europe have breached the US$20,000per 40-ft mark, according to Loadstar, an international shipping webportal.
It said the transpacific carriers are quoting rates up to $25,000 to the US west coast.
The portal also said that there was one report of $32,000 from Shanghai to Los Angeles being quoted this week.
In the meantime, the number of queued covered vans in front of the depots in Chattogram have shrunk to some extent.
As of Thursday, the number of covered vans waiting with export goods stood at around 2,200, some 1,000 down from just two days back.
Many shipping experts, including Chattogram Port Chairman, were now arguing in favour of signing 'common carrier agreement' with MLOs and feeder operators to ease the situation.
Some others, however, said that the common carrier agreement was not possible for Bangladesh.
They argued that each of the MLOs has a certain import and export capacity, which the respective MLOs commits to load on specific feeder vessels on the basis of that capacity or committed vessels' operators offer rates to that MLOs earlier. Under such circumstances, they said, it would be difficult to sign a common carrier agreement right now.
However, the government has formed a taskforce to take measures to resolve the problems being faced by the shippers of outbound containers.
The Ministry of Shipping (MoS) organised a virtual meeting with all the key stakeholders of Chattogram Port on Wednesday to find out a solution in this regard.
Shipping secretary Mohammed Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury presided over the virtual meeting.
