Bangladesh’s metro shipments utilising mix of air freight, sea/air, land/air routings

Dhaka: Bangladesh’s exporters are reaping the benefits of creative logistic solutions amid rising freight rates and capacity shortages.

Metro shipments from the country have been utilising a unique mix of air freight, sea/air and land/air routings, including through China and India, to tackle costs and delays.

As the country’s apparel sector increases production after months of disruption, exporters are now benefiting from these creative logistic moves.

These approaches are proving vital in bringing down transport costs, often bypassing traditional and congested Middle Eastern hubs.

As air freight rates to Europe and the US have been hiked to their highest levels in two years, routing through alternative hubs, including in China, seems to be viable.

The cost-effective nature of these routes as well as the availability of cargo space on Chinese airlines help exporters avoid the bottlenecks currently found in Middle Eastern hubs.

On the other hand, India is coming up as a key transshipment point, where goods are trucked to Delhi from Dhaka and flown onward to Europe and the US.

The infrastructure issues and capacity constraints at Dhaka Airport are forcing exporters to explore alternative transshipment routes.

Hence, innovative routing strategies such as sea/air are becoming crucial to maintain efficient supply chains. For instance, from Dhaka, goods are shipped by sea to Colombo and then flown to their final destination.

Capacity growth in key regions is supporting exporters with relief. It may be mentioned her, the year-on-year air cargo capacity growth from Asia-Pacific to North America and Europe has risen by over 16 per cent and 19 per cent respectively.

The development is aimed at balancing the surge in demand and freight rates, with hopes that Bangladesh’s exporters can weather out such adversities.