Many of the Chattogram port's 12 container jetties have been lying vacant for the last couple of weeks due to a fall in the number of ships amid a decrease in imports.

The port currently has 18 jetties. Of these, 12 jetties are dedicated for accommodating container vessels and the remaining six are for vessels dealing with bulk cargo.

Port officials and users said vessels can currently get berths on arrival in most cases without having to wait at the outer anchorage.

This is in total contrast to the scenario that prevailed in July and August.

At that time, the port was frequently facing long queues of vessels waiting to get berth in jetties.

Owing to a countrywide political unrest, many vessels were having to wait anywhere from five to seven days to get berths.

According to the daily berthing reports of Chattogram port, for the period from November 12 to November 23, two to five jetties remained vacant on different days.

And the last week of November saw even more empty jetties, with a maximum of seven jetties remaining vacant on November 29.

In November, a total of 325 vessels arrived at the port. The number was 337 in October.

Out of the total number of ships, the number of container vessels that arrived in November was 103 whereas in October it was 109.

According to stakeholders, fewer ships arrived in November due to a noticeable fall in imports owing to complexities pertaining to the opening of letters of credit in the previous months amid a US dollar crunch.

Port data shows that around 1.13 lakh TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers laden with import cargo arrived at the port in November, which was the lowest in the past eight months since April.

The port received a total of 1.40 lakh TEUs of containers, including empty ones, at the port's main jetties, Kamalapur inland container depot (ICD) and Pangaon ICT in Dhaka and this figure was also the lowest in the last nine months since March.

Several senior officials of different shipping agents and container vessel operating firms said vessels bound for the Chattogram port were getting a significantly lower number of containers laden with imports at the transhipment ports over the last couple of weeks.

For instance, SOL Promise, which plies on the Chattogram-Colombo route, set sail from a Sri Lankan transhipment port on November 29 with only 117 TEUs of import-laden containers.

The vessel usually carries 600 TEUs to 800 TEUs of import-laden containers.

Muntasir Rubayat, head of operations of a feeder operating firm called GBX Logistics, said some of the ships tried to extend their voyage by going to another nearby transhipment port to collect some more cargo.

This was to cover for losses incurred for the reduction in the number of containers bound for the Chattogram port, he said.

And in that process, ships took longer to arrive here and thus jetties remained vacant, he opined.

Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association Chairman Syed M Arif said due to complexities in opening letters of credit, the import of cargo, including raw materials, have dropped recently.

Confirming this, Nasir Uddin Chowdhury, chairman of the standing committee on port and shipping of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said many big factories had reduced the import of raw materials in recent weeks.

This was due to the fact that they were getting a lower number of work orders and business was slow due to unrest involving the readymade garment factories in Dhaka, he said.

Mentioning that this slowdown was usual in the final months of a year, Nasir hoped for business to gain momentum in the coming months.