Readymade garment makers on Monday expressed concern that their failure in maintaining export lead-time due to container and vessel congestions in the Chittagong port might result in diversion of buyers’ orders to other competing countries like India, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Myanmar. ‘The RMG sector has fallen in a deep crisis as delivery of raw materials is taking more time and we are failing to produce and ship products in time due to the congestions in the port,’ Md Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said at a press conference held at the BGMEA headquarters in the capital, Dhaka. He said that it was unprecedented that feeder vessels were leaving the Chittagong port loading less number of containers than their capacity. The BGMEA president claimed that it was taking up to 15-20 days for unstuffing LCL (less than container load) containers from ships and the vessel berthing was being delayed by 7-8 days at the port. ‘In many cases, we have been forced to make delivery of products through air cargo with high cost to maintain lead time as the inefficient management of the Chittagong port is hampering the RMG export business heavily,’ he said. Siddiq alleged that due to a slow pace of loading and unloading of export goods many feeder vessels were missing mother vessels. ‘The initiative taken by the port authorities to reduce the congestions has become a new challenge for the exporters to load products on the feeder vessels as the cut-off time has been reduced for the purpose,’ he said. The BGMEA president also blamed inadequate handling equipment and shortage of jetties and yards for the congestions in the port. Before the country’s liberation, there were 13 jetties in the Chittagong port and only seven additional jetties have been installed in forty-six years of independence, Siddiq said. The BGMEA demanded that the authorities make all four gantry cranes operational and procure or hire all the handling equipment soon to resolve the ongoing crisis. Siddiq blamed some government officials for the congestions at the port and requested the government ‘to put right people in right place’. ‘It is not acceptable that we the businesspeople will make investment and incur losses and you the government officials will take your salaries from our tax money without doing your job,’ he said. Siddiq also claimed that some people were giving misinformation to the international community about the Bangladesh’s readymade garment sector. Buyers are losing their confidence in Bangladesh and trying to shift their business to other countries due to the negative propaganda, the BGMEA president said. BGMEA senior vice-president Faruque Hassan and vice-presidents Mohammed Nasir and Ferdous Perves Bivon were present, among others, in the press conference.
