Increased tariffs on 23 out of the 52 services at the Chattogram port, the lifeline of the country’s trade, will come into effect on October 15 amid businesses’ opposition to the steep hikes in charges.
The Chattogram Port Authority had initially planned to implement the increased rates, including 37 per cent rise in container handling charges, on September 15 but deferred the time frame by one month due to the businesses’ objections to the rates.
The first major tariff revision in nearly four decades triggered strong opposition from the country’s businesses who said that the port usage cost would rise by 41 per cent on average due to the hikes in service charges.
On Tuesday, the CPA issued a notification, signed by its chief finance and accounts officer Mohammad Abdus Shakur, mentioning the fresh implementation date.
Opposing the decision, Mohammad Hatem, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said that the port, as a state agency, was meant to facilitate trade not to operate as a profit-making enterprise.
He told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that the timing of the hike was particularly problematic, as Bangladesh was preparing to graduate from the least developed countries’ bloc and the graduation would cause the losing of various trade privileges the country was now enjoying.
‘The sudden increase in port charges will put an additional burden on businesses by raising the overall cost of doing business, for which the exporters would lose competitiveness on the global market,’ he added.
Inamul Haq Khan, senior vice-president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said, ‘We thought that the authority at least would reduce the rates, but it issued a notification by keeping the increased charges unchanged. It’s unfortunate.’
He also said that the country’s exports were facing the challenges caused by 20 per cent reciprocal tariff imposed by the United States recently.
Under the circumstances, hiking port service charges will hurt the businesses heavily, he said.
CPA secretary Md Omar Faruk told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that shipping adviser M Sakhawat Hussain had announced the one-month suspension of the new rates on September 20 following opposition from the port users.
‘Accordingly, the revised rates will now be collected after midnight of October 14,’ he added. According to Tuesday’s notice, all vessels, containers and cargoes arriving at the port after 12:00am on October 15 will be charged at the new rates.
Similarly, clearing and forwarding agents and all other port users would be required to pay the revised fees.
All listed shipping agents have been instructed to ensure sufficient funds in their respective bank accounts to obtain the no-objection certificate for vessel clearance.
Under the revised rates, the fee for a 20-foot container will rise by Tk 4,395 to Tk 16,244, an increase of 37 per cent on Tk 11,849.
Import containers will cost an extra Tk 5,720 and export containers additional Tk 3,045. Moreover, loading and unloading charges will go up by about Tk 3,000 per unit, while per-kilogram cargo handling fees climb by Tk 0.47 to Tk 1.75.
Vessel waiting charges will nearly double, with penalties rising by 200 per cent after 12 hours and by 900 per cent beyond 36 hours. Piloting is set at $800 a vessel, and tugging fees rise to $6,830.
Port officials earlier had said that no other port in the world offered shipping services as cheaply as the Chattogram port and the previous tariff structure no longer matched with the current costs or demand.
The CPA handles 92 per cent of the country’s imports and exports through sea routes and 98 per cent of container and cargo transport.
In 2024, the port handled 3,275,627 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers compared with 3,050,793 TEUs in 2023 and 3,142,504 TEUs in 2022.
Moreover, the Chattogram port handles 130 million tonnes of cargo annually on average, along with more than 4,000 cargo vessels each year.
Syed M Arif, chairman of the Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association, said that that increased tariffs would significantly raise overall trade costs.
He warned that foreign shipping lines would have no option but to increase freight charges, which would further impact the country’s foreign trade.
Earlier, on September 1, the Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association announced new handling charges at private inland container depots, hiking the rates by up to 44 per cent for the export cargoes.