LOADING and unloading became quicker as ships were taking less time to dock at the jetty leading to shorter average stays, according to the Chittagong port authority, reports Dhaka's bdnews24.com.

Container handling has gone up by 6.5 per cent at Chittagong Sea Port, the country's largest seaport in the first four months of the current fiscal year. However, the number of ships coming to the port has dropped and the quantity of cargo processed decreased.

The port authorities say they look at the increase in container handling and the shorter average stay of ships positively.

The unrest in the country around August has begun to ebb, which was good news for traders and should continue, said Chittagong Shipping Agents Association director Khairul Alam Sujon.

A smaller number of ships coming to the port did not mean that imports and exports have declined, the director said.

Earlier, 1,200 to 1,500 containers used to come in each of the smaller sized ships whereas bigger ships were now carrying 2,000 containers each, he said.

The scale of the progress will become evident at the beginning of the new year, he said.

More than 1.1 million TEU were handled by the Chittagong Port from July to October in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to Chittagong Port Authority.

The figure was 1,030,757 TEU over the same period in 2023. Hence, 71,160 more containers, equivalent to a 6.45 per cent increase, were handled this year. At least 1,023,739 TEU were handled in the same period in 2022.

A total of 271,335 TEU were handled in July, 271,869 in August, 283,324 in September and 275,389 in October.