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Local shipping firms have expressed fear over detention of 13 vessels as they thought it would affect the country's external trade, particularly of perishable commodities like potatoes.
Executives at the firms said that foreign principals of the local firms got panicked due to the warrants issued by the country's Admiralty Court on Thursday last allegedly for carrying rotten potatoes.
The warrants were handed over to the authorities concerned through messengers in the afternoon of the same day.
Local private commercial bank, Midland Bank Ltd, had filed a case, claiming more than Tk 112 million as compensation from the shipping firms, according to court orders obtained by the Financial Express.
The executives said the principals also asked their local agents or firms to organise emergency meetings for taking actions pertaining to carrying the perishable commodities.
The firms also informed the FE that the operators might reduce their vessels to and from Chittagong as well as show their reluctance to send the vessels through the route, as a result.
Sahed Sarwar, executive director at the K-Line Bangladesh, said they as also their principals are panicked over the detention order against such large number of vessels.
"Some of them shared their thinking as to whether they will send their vessels in the route," he said, adding that a large number of international shipping firms already asked them to organise an emergency meeting to take actions pertaining to carrying the perishable commodities.
Captain A.S. Chowdhury, country head of the Seacon, said that they would have to rethink whether they would carry fresh potato in the upcoming months under such circumstances.
While stuffing into the reefer containers, he said, verifying such products would be hardly possible by the surveyors.
"Actually, many of us are now thinking not to carry such type of sensitive products as it will not only affect us financially but also our goodwill."
Md Ahsanul Haque Chowdhury, a senior executive at the MGH Group and president of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association, said: "The mainline operators are worried."
He said the owners might not send their vessels in the route after getting bail. The country's external trade would suffer severely if they really withdraw the vessels from the route that already suffering from adequate ships.
Such arrest warrant is not new, but against 13 vessels at a time had never happened before, according to people familiar with the matter.
Some six vessels were now either in different jetties of Chittagong seaport or waiting at the outer anchorage.
People in the shipping circles said that both the export and import trades will face some sort of problems, following the arrest warrants. Their aggregate container handling capacity is around 14,000 TEUs (twenty equivalent units).
Usually a container vessel has some sort of planning for loading export products and unloading imported goods, and connect with the mother vessels at different international seaports.
Around 60 container vessels ply between Chittagong and Singapore Port, Colombo Port and Port of Klang in Malaysia. They connect mother vessels and wait there for cargoes.
Shipping executives in Dhaka and Chittagong said that they will have to wait at least five days for getting court orders and leaving the Chittagong port. They said overstaying in the port and its outer anchorages will also increase their operating cost.
According to people at different 'P&I Clubs', who are responsible for protecting the interest of vessels at Chittagong, the practice is that they will move the matter through lawyers and usually need bank guarantees for the bail orders.
The 13 vessels are Kalamata Trader-MCC, Tzini-OOCL, Sea Master- Simatech, Cape Syros-MCC, Camilla-OEL, OEL Lanka-OEL, OEL Malaysia-OEL, Anderson Bridge, Metatus Medan, Arca, Hansa Castelia, MCC Java and Max Schulte.
Bangladesh annually exports fresh potatoes worth around US$ 12 million, mostly destined to Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Russia. But Russia recently imposed a ban on import of fresh potatoes from Bangladesh, according to Potato Exporters Association.