Much to the miseries of exporters, containers piled up further at the Chittagong Port yesterday as major foreign feeder vessel operators declined to resume operation for the second day demanding cancellation of the new rule for getting waiver certificate before loading and unloading of goods.

About 10,000 TEUS (twenty equivalent units) of containers loaded with one lakh tonnes of imported cargoes remained stuck up at different ports of Singapore, Colombo and Klang and Tanjuma Palapus in Malaysia, sources said.

To make matters worse, a government-sponsored meeting with the representatives of the MLO and the Singapore-based Chittagong Feeder Trade Committee (CFTC) yesterday failed to make headway towards resolving the stalemate.

Representatives of the foreign feeder vessel operators have told the government that they would not start operation unless and until the rule is evoked.

Commodore Zulfiquer Ali, chairman of the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA), chaired the fruitless two-hour meeting, sources said.

Representatives of the foreign operators also threatened the port authorities that the six foreign feeder vessels, which are to reach Chittagong very soon, would not come over at all. They even asked the CPA to drop names of those ships from its arrival list.

Meanwhile, the government yesterday asked the Bangladesh Ocean Going Ship Owners Association (BOGSOA) to carry all the piled-up containers to Singapore immediately.

Shipping Minister Akbar Hossain yesterday told The Daily Star that the CPA issued a letter asking the president of BOGSOA to clear goods presenting valid documents.

The letter was issued since the local ship owners had been claiming that they have the capacity to carry all the import-export goods to and from Bangladesh, the minister said.