Chittagong box throughput down 10 per cent in July 2011-May 2012
Container handling in the Chittagong Port plunged nearly 10 per cent during the first 11 months of this fiscal year (July 2011-May 2012) over the same period of the previous fiscal due to sluggish trend in export and import, reported The Financial Express (Bangladesh).
This is the first time container handling dropped in the port since inception of containerised cargoes in the late 1970s.
Container handling at the prime port, which handles more than 92 per cent of the country's trade, had been growing by 12 per cent on an average every fiscal during the last one decade.
According to official statistics, the Chittagong Port handled 1.22 million TEUs containers in the first 11 months of the current fiscal, 135,000 TEUs less than that of the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Shipping analysts said global economic meltdown, especially in Europe, is the main reason behind the situation. They said the downward trend is likely to continue for the next few months.
A S Chowdhury, country director of Sea Consortium, said: "I don't see any immediate rise in the trade."
Bangladesh's economy has been expanding by more than six percent per year. This steady economic growth was mainly propelled by garment exports to Europe and the US.
The country's export declined by more than four percent in May 2012 against the same month in 2011.
