The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has moved to buy 130 more pieces of equipment by next year aiming to provide better services to port users, officials have said.
The existing equipment can cover 80 per cent of the requirements of the country's prime seaport, they added.
The port is seeing export-import trade handling growth of over 10 per cent every year.
CPA chairman Zulfiqur Aziz told the FE that in the last few months, a good number of items of equipment were bought to cope up with the growing export-import trade through the Chittagong port.
These procurements include Quay Gantry Crane, Mobile Harbour Crane, Rubber Tyred Gantry Crane, Rail Mounted Yard Gantry Crane, and Straddle Carrier.
However, these pieces of equipment are not enough to handle the growing trade volume, thus the port is badly in need of more items of equipment.
Apart from present establishments, Mr Aziz said, some more yards and terminals are under-construction which will come into operation within a couple of years and will need more equipment.
"I want to ensure presence of 120 per cent of required equipment at Chittagong port," he added.
The chairman said a committee, headed by CPA chief engineer Nazmul Hoque, is working to determine the pieces of equipment needed to smoothly handle operations in the port.
Once the new lot of required equipment is bought, the port operation would not face any obstacle, even if some 20 per cent equipment remains inactive for maintenance work, he said.
Mr Aziz said four more Quay Gantry Cranes will be needed for the new mooring container terminal (NCT) while under-construction Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) and Bay Terminal will need a good number of such cranes.
According to the CPA website, at present there are a total of 136 pieces of equipment for handling containers at Chittagong port.
Those are: 10 Quay Gantry Cranes, three Mobile Harbour Cranes, 32 Rubber Tyred Gantry Cranes, one Rail Mounted Yard Gantry Crane, 48 Straddle Carriers, 12 Reach Stackers, three Forklift Trucks, nine Forklifts, nine Reach Stackers and nine Container Movers.
Besides, there are some 218 pieces of equipment including Mobile Crane, Forklift Truck, Industrial Tractor, Heavy Trailer, Light Trailer, Car Carrier and Tele Handler.
CPA's chief engineer Nazmul Hoque told the FE that the committee is yet to finalise the number of equipment to be needed in the coming days when new yards and terminals will come into operation.
But he said a preliminary list of 16 types of 93 pieces of equipment has been prepared so far. A final list will be prepared by next week, he added.
Mr Hoque estimates that some Tk 7.0 billion will be needed to buy 93 pieces of equipment, but the cost will rise if the number of equipment goes up.
The country's prime seaport handles over 90 per cent of seaborne trade. In 2017, the port handled 2.56 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) of containers against its built in capacity of handling 1.7 million TEUs.
