By Syful Islam
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has expressed interest to invest in Bangladesh’s four inland and sea ports aiming at the country’s port sector development, sources said.
The ports are: deep-sea port in Cox’s Bazar, Mongla Port, New Mooring Container Terminal, and Inland Container Deport (ICD) with rail connectivity in Dhaka.
The sources said a high profile government delegation of the UAE has expressed willingness to visit Bangladesh for examining possibility of investment.
“The UAE wants to invest in our port sector development on a government-to-government basis. We are now evaluating the investment proposal,” a senior Ministry of Shipping (MoS) official told the FE.
He said the MoS wanted to know the mode of UAE investment in Bangladesh’s ports since a number of development activities are going on.
According to him the Chittagong port has taken steps for operating New Mooring Container Terminal from its own funding. Besides, the Chittagong port and Bangladesh Railway have been operating Dhaka Inland Container Port for long. Appointment of a private operator for Dhaka ICD is at final stage.
On the other hand, the cabinet committee has decided to look for fund on a government-to-government basis for construction of a deep-sea port at Sonadia in Cox’s Bazar. Besides, three projects for navigational aid, dredging at harbour area of Pashur channel, and collecting cutter section dredger, pilot and dispatch boat are going on in Mongla port.
Officials said Bangladesh’s ports have become very important for connectivity of South Asian region; thus many are interested to invest here for good and quick return.
Earlier, several governments had expressed interest in Mongla port, and Chittagong port development. Besides, countries like China, Germany and many others showed keen interest to invest in construction of deep-sea port in Sonadia.
The country’s two sea ports – Chittagong and Mongla – are likely to see a good rise in container handling once neighbouring India is granted transit and transshipment facility for carrying cargoes to its ‘seven sisters’ states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.
Alongside giant India, other countries like Nepal and Bhutan are also interested to enjoy the similar facility for facilitating their external trade.
Container handling by the two sea ports is seeing considerable growth every year as the country’s export and import activities have increased significantly in the recent years.
The Chittagong Port has now a capacity of handling an aggregate volume of 1.6 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). Against the capacity, it now handles 1.3 million TEUs, leaving a surplus capacity of 0.3 million TEUs a year.
On the other hand, the Mongla port has the capacity of handling 50,000 TEUs of containers a year, but only 20,000 TEUs of sea-borne cargoes are now handled by it.
Source: The Financial Express
