Chattogram port has advanced three steps in a year to become the world’s 64th busiest port in terms of annual throughput of containers in 2021.

The latest 2022 edition of Lloyd’s List’s One Hundred Ports was published yesterday tallying up the annual container throughput figures of the world’s elite port facilities in 2021.

The port advanced for seven consecutive years, but slipped nine notches to rank 67th among 100 top ports across the world in 2021’s Lloyd’s List, the world’s oldest journal on port and shipping.

According to the list, the premier sea port of Bangladesh handled a total of 32,14,548 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers in 2021, up from 28,39,977 TEUs in the previous year, posting 13.2 per cent year-on-year growth in container handling.

The port ranked 58th in 2020 edition of the ranking, 64th in 2019, 70th in 2018, 71st, 76th and 87th, 86th in 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014 respectively.

Regrading Chattogram port’s position in this year’s ranking, Lloyd’s List stated, “Bangladeshi box hub bounces back to post stellar throughput numbers, despite the port’s much-maligned capacity constraints.”

According to the Lloyd’s List, box liftings accelerated at ports globally in 2021, yet the rebound from the Covid-induced slump came at a price.

Congestion chaos at different ports overshadowed this volume recovery, it stated.

Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) Chairman Rear Admiral M Shahjahan said the port experienced 13 per cent year-on-year growth in container handling last year, which means that the country’s foreign trade returned to its original track after the pandemic.

He said there was no container or vessel congestion at the port last year when 49 per cent of the vessels got berth on arrival and it helped the port achieve such growth.

It happened mainly for the all-out support from all the stakeholders, he said.

Chattogram port handles 98 per cent of the total container throughput in the country while Mongla handles the rest.

The article appeared in the Daily Star