Rear Admiral M Shahjahan, Chairman of Chattogram Port, said that ships of 209 meters in length and 10 meters in draft will be able to land at the jetty of Chattogram Port very soon.
He said that the capacity of the port would increase 3-4 times once the construction of Bay Terminal and Matarbari Port Development Project is completed.
He made the remarks at a press conference on the occasion of 135th anniversary of the port at Shaheed Md. Fazlur Rahman Munshi Auditorium on Sunday.
He said that the Cox's Bazar district administration handed over 283.27 acres of land under the Matarbari Port Development Project to the port authorities on March 30. Tenders will be called for the construction of the port. The Matarbari terminal will be able to accommodate ships with a draft of more than 16 meters.
The district administration handed over the 67-acre privately owned land deed under the Bay Terminal project to the port in the last week of October 2021.
The Ministry of Land has been requested through the Ministry of Shipping to allocate 803 acres of land in favor of the port at a symbolic price.
The port authorities are working on the construction of 1500 thousand meters long multipurpose terminal, 1 thousand 225 meters and 800 long 2 container terminals by 2025
He said the construction of the Patenga Container Terminal (PCT), which aims to handle 4.5 lakh TEU's containers a year, is 90 per cent complete. The project is being implemented at a cost of Tk 1,229.58 crore. The 600-meter jetty can accommodate three container ships of 190 m length and 9.5 m draft and an oil tanker at the 220 m long dolphin jetty. I hope that the activities of PCT will start next July.
The launch of direct shipping service from Chattogram port to Europe has created new milestones by sea. The MV Tsonga Cheetah left the port on February 7 with 952 containers. There are direct shipping routes from Chittagong to USA.
The container capacity has been increased to 55,000 as 580,000 square meters have been constructed in a decade to increase the capacity of the port.
Port limit has been increased from 7 nautical miles to 50 nautical miles. In order to increase the port logistics capacity, 2 tugboats named Kandari 6 and 12, 2 mooring launches, 2 site scan sonar, 2 echo sounders, 1 sea-going harbor tugboat have been procured.
Over the past decade, 390 different types of cargo and container handling equipment including ship-to-shore key gantry cranes, mobile harbor cranes, rubber tiered gantry cranes have been collected.
The port chairman said various concessions are being given to encourage entrepreneurs to invest in private ICDs. A multi-storey car shed is being constructed near Jetty Gate No. 1 of the port. Initiatives have been taken to build state-of-the-art chemical sheds to facilitate safe import and export of hazardous, radioactive and chemical products.
In Chattogram Port 2021, container handling has been 32 lakh 14 thousand TEUs, growth of 13.19 percent. General cargo lifted 11.66 million tons, an increase of about 13 percent. Ship handling has been 4,209, growth 13 percent. This achievement has exceeded the 30-year launch of the port.
Port Member (Harbor and Marine) Commodore Md Mostafizur Rahman, Member (Finance) Kamrul Amin, Member (Engineering) Capt. Mahbubur Ragman, all department heads and CBA leaders were present on the occasion.