Container storage waiver to cease Monday 

The Chittagong Port Authority is cancelling the storage fee waiver facility on imported goods from April 21 (Tuesday). 

The director (traffic) of the Chittagong Port Authority has already issued an advisory in this regard. According to the notice, importers who did not receive their consignments during the waiver will have to pay for the entire period.     

Usually, importers at the Chattogram port are charged from the fifth day after cargo is unloaded from a ship. One Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) container costs $6 per day to store in the first week, while the cost goes up at $12 in the second and $24 in the third week.       

The government had waived all storage fees as containers piled up amid novel coronavirus pandemic-driven shutdown since March 27. 

However, this facility to the importers further worsened container handling, as accumulated containers surpassed the port's storage capacity. Container delivery dropped around 70 percent putting the port authority in a fix to maintain its operations.       

Importers who failed to avail the storage fee waiver facility will have to pay for the entire period, said Omor Faruk, secretary of the Chittagong Port Authority.