Recently, the spread of the epidemic in Bangladesh has dealt a great blow to the international shipping industry, especially the impact on Chittagong.

Affected by the epidemic, many importers were unable to collect containers at the port, which caused serious congestion to Chittagong.

Many importers said that due to the national blockade policy, many factories and warehouses were temporarily closed, so no one could go to the port to collect containers.

It can be said that Chittagong is facing the biggest challenge. Nearly 20000 TEUs have been stacked in the port for nearly half a month, and even more than 25 ships are waiting for the arrival of containers here.

Why does it cause such congestion? That has to start with the recent Eid al Fitr in Bangladesh.

The arrival of Eid al Fitr brought great pressure to Chittagong. Factories and warehouses across the country were closed, resulting in no manpower to transport containers to the port.

At present, there are about 20000 TEUs in the port, while there are nearly 40000 TEUs outside the port, which is almost the same as the storage capacity of the port.

Faced with such a severe situation, the Chittagong port authority could not sit still and implemented a series of countermeasures.

For example, the Port Authority said that it is currently managing the Chittagong Colombo route and giving priority to the berthing of ships on this route, so as to reduce the number of export containers outside the port.

After this measure, only nearly 8500TEU containers of export goods are waiting for suppliers, but under normal circumstances, this figure is less than 5000TEU.

However, this measure will delay the route from Chittagong to other ports, and some ships even wait for a week.

At the same time, the relevant person in charge of the port also hopes that the importer can take back the containers in the port to reduce the congestion of the port.

The air transport market is also not optimistic

Due to the impact of port congestion, the shipping market has been greatly impacted. However, the air transport market is not optimistic.

According to the relevant staff of Hazrat shahjalal International Airport, an explosion detection system in the airport failed, which delayed the flight transporting goods.

The impact of this delay is that a large number of goods are piled up at the airport, and because there is no suitable warehouse nearby to store the goods, the goods are piled up at the airport surface, which may cause damage to the goods.

Not only that, because the whole supply chain was affected by congestion, air transport prices rose sharply. Overall, goods destined for the United States and Europe increased by $1 and $0.50 per kilogram respectively.

At present, the congestion in Chittagong is very serious, both sea and air transportation have been seriously damaged, and the port authority is also trying to find a way to solve the crisis.