The Chittagong Port stayed at the club of 3 millions, in terms of annual containers handling, in the just-ended calended year while its earning stood at Tk 35.85 billion during the last (2021-2022) financial year.
Sources said the port's net income in FY '22 stood at Tk 10.75 billion after deduction of all expenditures including charges, taxes and salaries of staff and employees in the fiscal year.
However, the country's prime seaport hadled less containers in the last calendar year than it did in the previous one. Sources said the port's container handing in 2022 declined by 2.2 per cent from the previous calendar year.
On the other hand, the port's 2022 cargo handling witnessed a 2.6% rise over 2021.
Sources at the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) said, the port handled a total of 31,42,504 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers from January 01 to December 31 last year while 32,14,548 TEUs containers were handled by it in the 12 months of 2021, registering a 2.2% year to year decline.
Besides, the port handled 11,96,65,682 metric tonnes (MT) of open cargoes from Jan 01 to Dec 31, 2022, while it handled 11,66,19,158 MT open cargoes from Jan 01-Dec 31, 2021, marking a 2.6% rise.
A CPA official said handling of open cargoes at the port was 10,32,09,000 MT in 2020 while it handled 10,30,77,000 MT open cargoes in 2019.
He said the Chittagong Port handled a total of 4361 ships in Jan 01- Dec 31, 2022, while 4209 vessels were handled by the seaport in 12 months of 2021. It handled 3.6% more ships in 2022 than the previous calendar year.
Besides, a total of 3,728 ships took berth at the port in 2020 compared to 3,807 berthing in 2019.
The official also said that the port handled 28, 39,987 TEUs containers from Jan 1 to Dec 31 in 2020 while it handled 30,88,197 TEUs containers in the same period of 2019. In 2018, the number of containers handled by the port was 29,03,996 TEUs which was 26,67,223 TEUs in 2017.
When contacted, CPA Chairman Rear Admiral M Shahjahan acknowledged that the seaport handled a record quantity of open-cargoes in 2022 while a large number of containers were also handled by it in that year. He said waiting time of ships at port also reduced in the year, which is now zero. "We have started the ships with Europe now," the CPA chief mentioned.
CPA Secretary Omar Faruk said handling of cargoes increased last year. The CPA cut the costs of maintenance in the last fiscal year. Besides, Chittagong Port moved up by 3 notches in terms of global ports' position. Chittagong Port earned the 64th position among the 100 ports in the worlds. Its position was 67 earlier. He attributed the achievement to quantity of cargoes the port handled in the past year as well as over 30 million containers handled by it during the time.
Every year, the Chittagong Port handles over 92% of export-import cargoes in Bangladesh.
nazim07@yahoo.com