The authorities of the country's premier seaport here have been struggling for the last few weeks to accommodate a large number of imported reconditioned vehicles as the importers of such vehicles are on an import spree ahead of budget assuming an increase in duty.Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has a total of four designated sheds with a capacity to accommodate 2,800 vehicles. But as of yesterday, there were 5,400 imported vehicles in the port area and the CPA had to arrange alternative spaces for additional 2,600 vehicles. Officials said around 3,500 vehicles arrived this month alone until May 17, and a ship containing 1,400 more vehicles is scheduled to reach the port on Thursday. The space crisis is likely to deepen further in the first week of June when more vessels are expected to arrive before the announcement of budget for the next fiscal year, they said.CPA however alleged that non-cooperation of importers is a major reason that aggravates the situation prior to the budget announcement every year.“We noticed in the last few years that months before budget announcement in June, a large number of reconditioned vehicles were imported and being dumped for quite a long period at our sheds,” said Motahar Hossain, deputy traffic manager of CPA. He said the CPA would not face space crisis of such a serious extent if the importers took a regular and quick delivery of the vehicles.Citing the slower pace in delivery, the CPA officials said on an average the importers take delivery of around 200 to 250 vehicles per day. On Sunday 244 vehicles were cleared from the port sheds, they said. Importers however denied the allegation of their non-cooperation and non-delivery in time and blamed the CPA for not expanding the existing parking sheds or building new sheds to resolve the crisis. “Although the port has so far been developed much in different sides, the authorities always ignored the necessity of building newer parking sheds or expanding the older ones,” said Mahbubul Haque Chowdhury Babar, secretary general of Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicle Importers and Dealers Association (Barvida).Babar said: "We import vehicles as per the growing market demand but the CPA never realised that the four-decade-old sheds were not sufficient to accommodate the vehicles. So it's in fact their (CPA) lack of timely initiative that is creating the present problem." However officials said CPA is considering construction of a multi-storied parking shed and the matter is under serious consideration. In this regard Barvida secretary general claimed it was in fact their association that few months ago gave such a proposal to the CPA, which welcomed the idea.The importers urged the government not to impose further duty on import of reconditioned vehicles in the next budget, saying it would force them to increase the price of vehicles. They also called for withdrawal of supplementary duty from 2000CC cars, 3000CC jeeps and microbuses.The Barvida secretary general demanded a stable policy for the import of reconditioned vehicles to ensure a good, transparent and useful market that would benefit both the customers and traders.Import of used vehicles rose sharply in the last four to five years especially in 2008 that saw import of 31,652 vehicles against 20,895 in 2007. Besides, 17,342 vehicles were imported in 2006 and 13,298 in 2005.The number of imported reconditioned vehicles may reach a record high this year as over 15,600 vehicles were already imported in a span from January 2009 to May 17, said industry insiders.According to available data, 2,322 vehicles were imported in January, 2,043 in February, 3,240 in March and 4,550 in April this year whereas the figures stood at 2,171, 1,604, 2,638 and 1,952 respectively in the same months last year.However the government decided that the imported reconditioned cars will now be unloaded at Mongla Port also, as a foreign vessel carrying 300 reconditioned cars imported from Japan will anchor at Mongla Sea Port on June 3.Import of used vehicles started first in Bangladesh in 1976 under baggage rule, while the commercial import began in 1980.
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