The leasing out of six newly-procured bulk carriers of the Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) to international operators instead of operating those on its own have raised questions.
Between July last year and February this year, the state-run Corporation bought the bulk carriers with funding from Export-Import Bank of China to operate those on its own as it suffers from scarcity of vessels.
The Corporation's managing director Yahya Syed told the FE on Tuesday the volume of outgoing bulk goods in Bangladesh is small, for which the vessels were not getting adequate cargo to carry.
"So, we leased out the vessels to some international companies to operate. We are making good profit this way," he said.
The agency had collected three product oil tankers and three bulk carriers at a cost of US$184.50 million.
From the six vessels, it is getting some US$60,000 per day as rent.
"We have calculated the debt servicing and deprecation costs of the vessels. The average income of $10,000 a day from each vessel is a good return," he noted.
Mr Syed said the lifetime of the vessels' is 25 years, but within 18 years the total loans will be repaid. The corporation will make profit during the remaining period.
He argued globally, most of the bulk carriers are being operated through chartered system.
Mr Syed said the vessels are mainly collected to carry oil for the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) and food grain for Food Department. "But none of them came forward to use our vessels. So we leased out those."
However, people involved in the business told the FE had the shipping corporation operated the vessels with its own arrangement, it could have earned much higher than it does now.
The chartered operators are taking away a significant portion of the money earned per day, they claimed.
Asked, Mr Syed told the FE for better marketing of the corporation's vessels, an office in Singapore or London will be needed.
Managing adequate cargo for the vessels by sitting in Chittagong would not be successful, for which those have been leased out, he said.
After BSC makes handsome profit, it will open marketing office abroad and operate the vessels through its own management.
Mr Syed also said Denmark will provide the agency with four container vessels soon.
After that container shipping service in Chittagong-Colombo and Chittagong- Singapore route will be launched. Two vessels in each wrote will be deployed, he added.
In January this year, the corporation has got approval for collecting six more vessels from China.
Of the six, two are mother tankers, two product oil tankers, and two are bulk carriers.
syful-islam@outlook.com