The state-owned Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) has received lukewarm response to the bidding for making vessels available for operating the joint venture container feeder service between Chattogram and Colombo, officials said.
Only one company responded positively as the BSC invited expression of interest (EoI) from oceangoing ship owning, ship handling and ship management companies to join hands with the corporation.
Following the poor response, the corporation is now examining the proposal and considering relaunch of the EoI from interested companies, the officials said.
"Since the BSC is not in a good position for a long time with only a few vessels in its fleet, the response was poor," corporation's managing director Yahya Syed told the FE.
But he said the BSC would be able to improve its image as it is set to get six oceangoing vessels, purchased from China, by February next year. One of those vessels has already been handed over to the BSC.
Asked about the company that responded to the BSC's EoI, he said it was a local company, already in the feeder service business from Chattogram.
The company has 10 vessels for the feeder service and they are doing well.
However, Mr Syed said since only one company responded positively, "we may go for relaunch of EoI."
In the EoI document, the corporation has said the BSC and the Ceylon Shipping Corporation Ltd (CSC), Sri Lanka under joint collaboration have taken an initiative to operate the feeder service on the Chattogram-Colombo route or from any other ports in the region.
It invited EoI from reputed and well established companies to deploy ships for the joint venture feeder service carrying the Bangladesh flag.
Earlier, the BSC planned to start the service by chartering feeder vessels. Its officials also had preliminary talks with a Singapore-based vessel charterer for hiring container vessels.
However, the talks were not successful and the vessels finally could not be hired.
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation between the two countries in sea trade during the visit of Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena to Dhaka in July last year.
A BSC delegation, led by Mr Syed, visited Colombo in November last to have discussion on launching the feeder service and the facilities to be offered by one party to another as per the MoU signed with Sri Lanka.
During the visit, the Colombo port authority offered a priority berthing facility for the proposed feeder service, 10 per cent transhipment rebate for Bangladesh's containers, 2.0 per cent rebate on stevedoring for over 1,000 moves per vessel call and 21 days' free storage for transhipments.
The Sri Lankan side, on the other hand, requested for equal treatment to both CSC's vessels and BSC's vessels at the Chattogram port.
According to officials, the BSC once ran a container feeder service on the Chattogram-Singapore route in 80s with three vessels of 1000-1200 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit). The service was closed later as the vessels became old.
Presently, several shipping companies, including Maersk Line, Pacific International Lines (PIL), 'K' Line, Yang Ming Line, Samudra Shipping Line, the Sea Consortium, Far Shipping and Bukit Barisan Line run feeder vessel services to Chattogram from various major ports as mother vessels cannot reach the port due to low draught.
syful-islam@outlook.com