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CHATTOGRAM: Chittagong Port handled a record number of containers in the outgoing year.
Until December 26 of the 2018, the prime seaport of the country handled over 2.861 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers, said Golam Sarwar, director (traffic) of the Chittagong Port Authority.
He expressed the hope that the volume of handled containers would cross 2.91 million on December 31, 2018.
At this rate, the port has handled 7,971 TEUs of containers everyday on average, he said.
In the fiscal year of 2017-18, the port handled 28, 08,554 TEUs of containers.
In 2016, the port handled 2,346,909 TEUs of containers while in 2012 it was 1.4 million TEUs.
The port has seen an annual container handling growth of 12-14 per cent, for which the London-based Lloyd's placed the facility at the 71st among the top 100 container-handling ports in the world early this year.
The container-handling has grown up recently, thanks to the expansion of the port's holding facility of containers and cargoes, procurement of a good number of cargo and container handling equipment and expansion of jetty facilities, especially for the lightering vessels.
The container holding capacity has boosted to 50,000 TEUs from 26,000 TEUs over the last few years while the total yard capacity has gone up to 0.9 million cubic metres from 0.4 million cubic metres.
Alongside the enhancement of these facilities, the port authorities have added six shore-to-ship gantry cranes in a single year, which are already in operation in the New Mooring Container Terminal.
The cranes, apart from the installation of many other cargo and container handling equipment, have ramped up production in the port and cut turnaround time of vessels in the port.