THE private inland container depots (ICDs) in Chattogram are overwhelmed with export containers due to advanced dispatch of cargoes by the exporters ahead of the recent Eid vacation in garment factories.

The readymade garment factories from across the country started sending their export cargoes to the twenty-one private ICDs one or two weeks before the scheduled shipment dates, reports Bangladesh's Daily Star.

This trend is seen every year before Eid vacation, but this year a few more factors have caused this extra pressure of shipment and acute container congestion in the ICDs, stakeholders opined.

The factors include increased flow of export cargoes in recent months, impact of cargo backlog created after the two-day operational closure in Chattogram port due to cyclone Remal last month and delays in vessel arrival for congestion in transshipment ports in Singapore and Malaysia, they said.

A transport crisis hit the business zone when fares of truck and covered vans doubled and vehicles started waiting for two or three additional days for unloading of cargoes at the ICDs.

The number of total containers, including export, import and empty, crossed 78,000 while the 21 ICDs together have the capacity to store 90,000 such containers.

Ninety per cent of the country's total export cargoes shipped through Chattogram Port are stuffed into containers in these ICDs before sending those containers to the port while rest 10 per cent are sent from Kamalapur ICD as well as directly from the export processing zones.