Movement of containers between Chittagong port and other parts of the country remained suspended from early hours of Sunday, the day of general election, despite no official restriction on the vehicles carrying export and import cargoes.
The port officials, however, said the law enforcers were not in favour of movement of the vehicles on the highways due to security reasons.
Some trailers, however, resumed delivering containers from the port to the inland container depots (ICDs) around 4.00 pm on the day, they said.
The truckers did not start carrying the containers either from the port or the depots until filing of this report.
Executive President of Chittagong Prime Mover, Trailer, Truck, Covered Van, Flatbed Owners Association Abu Bakar Siddique told the FE on Sunday that the movement of containers to and from the port resumes today (Monday) morning.
According to a senior port official, usually more than 3,500 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs) imported containers are delivered from the port in a 24 hour-cycle while nearly 3,000 TEUs of containers enter the port for shipment.
These include goods laden container delivery to inland container depots (ICDs), direct delivery of full container load to the importers yard and empty container despatch to the ICDs.
The official said that even not a single container entered the port yard from the early hour of Sunday as vehicle movement remained suspended throughout the country.
Asked whether the loading and unloading of containers was disrupted during the period, the official answered in the negative. "The activities inside the port were normal."
However, he said, since no container could enter the port during the period, comparatively increased volume of empty containers, earlier stored in the port yard, were shipped during the period.
Replying to another query, he said that though the containers could not be delivered from the port, yet there would be no congestion in the yard.
He said the port yard has enough space to store incoming containers for one more day.
