Resume box operations

Chittagong: Country’s top business leaders on Monday urged the caretaker government to ‘reactivate’ operations in the Chittagong port without any delay.

They said halt in gantry crane operations in Chittagong port by workers blocked unloading of commodities, mainly imported raw materials of garment industries, hampering productions.

‘We want the government to anyhow reactivate container handlings at the port without further loss of time,’ said Mir Nasir Hossain, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry at an emergency press conference.

Annisul Huq, the former president of the BGMEA, MA Awal, president of the BTMA, MA Momen of Dhaka chamber, and Mahbubur Rahman of International Chamber spoke at the conference held at the office of the BTMA in the city.

Mir Nasir said businesses including many export-oriented manufacturing industries were pushed to the brink of production suspension as the unloading of imported raw materials had been halted for the last 14 days.

‘No one should be allowed to paralyse the port, the lifeline of the country’s economy, and the businesses cannot bear the brunt anymore,’ he said.

Some 7,000 containers of imported garment raw materials and essential commodities including potato and wheat seeds have been stranded in 11 vessels at the port during the last two weeks while tow vessels left the ports failing to unload containers, he informed.

The president of the BGMEA, SM Fazlul Hoque, said many garment factories were on the verge of stopping productions with halted supply of raw materials. ‘The export industries have been hit hard.’

Dockworkers of the port since November 12 besieged the container terminal obstructing operation of cranes by a private company, threatening to close down other activities at the port if the private operator is not removed.

The port authority installed four gantry cranes in January and tried to operate those by the port workers but in the plea of unsatisfactory performance, Saif Powertec was appointed to carry out the job.

The dockworkers, who were barred from the crane operations, had been opposing the appointment with the support of Chittagong City Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury and demanding cancellation of the agreement.