Ctg port slips to 67th position in global ranking

Chattogram Port has slipped nine notches to 67th position in the latest edition of Lloyd’s List’s One Hundred Ports. Bangladesh was ranked 58th last year.

UK-based Lloyd’s made the report based on the traffic that passed across the docks of the world’s elite container-handling facilities in 2020 — arguably the most challenging year the industry has ever experienced.

Bangladesh’s principal port faced a significant dip in traffic as the coronavirus pandemic hit its substantial trade of readymade garment exports. The report also mentioned that in 2020 the figure was 2,839,977 twenty-foot equivalent units (TUEs), down by 8 percent compared to that of 2019, according to the report released recently.

But Bangladesh counts it on a fiscal year basis — from July to June.

The Chattogram Port Authority claimed that it made a new record by handling over three million (30,97,236) TUEs of containers in fiscal 2020-21, up from 27,97,190 TEUs a year ago.

M Omar Faruk, secretary of the Chattogram Port Authority, said the port was active 24 hours, even when there was countrywide lockdown last year.

“The (Lloyd’s) report showed last year’s data, but we achieved a new record of container handling in fiscal 2020-21 and we are optimistic to break the present record this fiscal year,” Faruk told the Business Insider Bangladesh on Tuesday.

M Mahabubul Alam, president of Chattogram Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI), said Bangladesh needs to take plans to recover the losses that have occurred due to the pandemic.

“Pandemic has exposed some flaws in our economic process and system and this is high time to reshape and address those errors,” said Alam.