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The Customs authority has issued warning that imported goods would be put up for auction if the relevant parties fail to get those released on time from both sea and air ports.
The Chittagong Customs House (CCH) cited legal provisions while warning the importers and the clearing and forwarding agents to clear the ports on Monday.
The law allows the authority to put undelivered goods up for auction after the expiry of 30 days from the date of arrival of imports.
In a notice, the agency said that it would be forced to take action to ease congestions at the port and ensure smooth flow of essential commodities.
However, the public notice needs to be considered as a show-cause notice by the importers who kept their products undelivered for the last one month, it said.
According to the customs act-1969, section 82, subsection (1), importers will have to take delivery of imported goods from sea ports by 30 days and airports by 21 days of import, or within the given stipulated timeframe, otherwise the customs authority "will dispose of the goods through auction."
Customs officials said the notice has been issued after they have found persistent congestions in the port, crippling the activities even of the private off-docks.
Chittagong port has the storage capacity of 49,018 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers, while 19 private off-docks can store some 2,500 containers.
Despite repeated requests, the importers are buying time to take delivery of their products from the port, although customs and port authorities are offering round-the-clock services, amid lockdown, officials said.
The importers, however, said they are not able to take delivery of goods because shops and markets are closed.
They have no adequate space or warehouse to store the products, because they usually sell imported goods just after release from the ports.
The customs agency said non-lifting of goods, on the one hand, has caused supply shortage of essentials during the holy month of fasting and worsened congestions in the port, on the other.
It requested the importers to take delivery of their imported goods from the country's main sea port and the Hazrat Shah Amanat International Airport in Chittagong.
Talking to the FE, commissioner Fakhrul Alam said they have issued the notice to ease congestions in the port.
"We will issue another notice on a case to case basis before putting the imported products up for auction," he said.
He said the importers are also in a box due to the closure of shops and markets during the lockdown, which was enforced on March 26 to stem the spread of deadly coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the time for store rent waiver for imported products in the port expired on Monday.
Enamul Karim, director responsible for traffic operations, at the Chittagong Port Authority, or CPA, said they have no plan yet to extend the timeframe for waiver, although the general holidays extended until May 16, 2020.
He said the trend in container delivery has accelerated by 75 to 80 per cent in recent days and some 4,000 TEUs containers are being delivered every day.
He said currently, 47,800 TEUS of containers have remained undelivered in the port.
Both the National Board of Revenue, or NBR) and CPA have taken a number of measures to support importers to take delivery of their goods.
The port operator has waived store rents while the NBR has allowed off-docks to handle all imported products under 6500 HS code.