7,000 importers told to take their cargoes with in a month

Chittagong: The Customs authorities issued notices to more than 7,000 importers to release their goods from the Chittagong Port in a month or see their consignments being put up for auction.


The notices were served on Sunday to ease ship and container congestion in the port for the last couple of months on ground of which the vessel owners declared imposition of surcharge with effect from June 5.


According to the port sources, on Monday, there were more than 15,000 TEUs of containers in the port against the capacity of 12,394 that compelled the Chittagong Port Authority to accommodate containers even in the jetties.


The vessels are taking extra two to three days to discharge the containers and it is creating long queues at the outer anchorage and increasing the turnaround time of the ships, the sources added.


As per the provision, importers can keep the containers at the port yard for 45 days since the arrival of the vessels and the customs authorities are empowered to auction the pending consignments after the timeframe.


But a section of importers are not releasing containers even after five to seven months of the arrival to avoid high storage charges in different private depots, the sources said.


In some cases, the importers are seen wholesaling their goods through opening containers in the jetties, clogging the port yard and disrupting offloading of containers from the berthing ships, they added.


The Commissioner of the Chittagong Customs House, Farid Uddin, said they detected more than 7,000 importers, who had not taken delivery of their goods even after the allowed timeframe.


‘We have served notices asking them to take delivery within one month after which their goods will be put for auction,’ he said.


The flow of container delivery increased significantly after the issuance of the notice, he said and hoped that the congestion would be cleared within a few days.


The Chittagong Port Authority Chairman, Shahadat Hossain, told a Bangla daily that they had also taken a number of measures, including restriction on selling goods inside the port, to ease the container congestion.


‘We are hopeful that the congestion would ease significantly within 15 days and implementation of the decision to impose of surcharge could be averted,’ he said.