Ship Building Industry of Bangladesh The history of indigenous shipbuilding in Bangladesh goes back a long way. It is one of the early industries developed in Bengal based on its old business of building boats and sea vessels. Bangladesh has a strong background in building ships since ancient times. Many countries of Asia and Europe regularly bought ships built in Chittagong.

Bangladesh has a strong background in building ships since ancient times. It is quite natural in that Bangladesh has more than 200 rivers with a total length of about 22,155km plus a long coast line on the Bay of Bengal. It is little known today that Bangladesh was the center of building ocean-going vessels in Asia between the 15th and 17th century.

In the early 19th century, the shipyards of Chittagong built many commercial ships of up to 1,000 tons and also British navy vessels that participated in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Due to this historic prosperous background and also a natural geographical advantage, there are presently more than 200 shipbuilding and ship-repair yards in Bangladesh. | Ship Building Industry in Bangladesh |
Prospect of Shipbuilding Industry in Bangladesh: The history of indigenous shipbuilding in Bangladesh goes back a long way. It began with wooden-bodied passenger vessels having two decks and gradually improved to steel-body construction of multi-deck passenger carriers in the eighties as the passenger transportation in reverine route peaked.

Cargo vessels under inland shipping ordinance began during the same period with sizes from 200 DWT to 500 DWT. Such construction did not require any organized dockyard or shipyard. These vessels were built on bare land on the riverside, scattered around the country especially where electricity was available on the river banks and construction of inland vessels flourished.

With the ship-breaking industry flourishing in Chittagong, availability of steel plates boosted the inland ship-building in the early nineties and various shipyards started to emerge in this sector. As of Tuesday, April 1, 2008, about two thousand locally-built cargo vessels of varying sizes -- from 500 DWT to 2000 DWT -- are now operating and one thousand vessels having 1000 passenger capacity each are transporting passengers on our inland riverine routes. In then East Pakistan, selection of site for Khulna Shipyard was made in 1954. A German firm was responsible for the establishment of the shipyard. It took three years to build the shipyard. Work started in the shipyard in the month of November, 1957. A British consultancy firm was made responsible for running the shipyard. Since 1967, the shipyard was being run by the local engineers and staff. Engineering equipment, pumps for irrigation, cargo vessels for fertilizer and seed, oil tankers and rail crossing barges were built in this shipyard. Many organizations got their work done in this shipyard. Garbage trucks and foot-over bridges are being built by this shipyard. Six thousand and fifty new ships were built in this shipyard. In the mid 80's, the slipway carriage of the shipyard was broken in an accident. Then it became a losing concern. A decision was taken to transfer this yard to the Ministry of Defense. The Bangladesh Navy took over the management of the shipyard in October, 1999. Then it became vibrant again. However, while the inland ship building was at its nascent stage, Bangladesh got its first exposure of international ship building in 1979. Japanese ship building giant, Mitsui Engineering and Ship Building Industry developed the first and the largest joint venture shipyard with High Speed Ship Building and Engineering Co. Ltd. at Fatullah. This joint venture enabled the first private sector ship repair building yard with modern facilities, slipways, workshops with Japanese management and local manpower and a proper shipyard emerged.

For the first time, Highspeed with their Japanese partners was able to build vessels according to international classification for meeting national requirement. To mention a few achievements, this yard constructed five deep-sea fishing trawlers and participated in an international tender floated by the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization, UN) to build eight grain carriers.

Shipbuilding Industry of Bangladesh: Before becoming a ship building nation, there are four mandatory conditions in order to produce ocean-going vessels: international standard shipbuilding practice, quality management system, coastal and riverine country, and infrastructure with proper sheds and skilled manpower. Bangladesh scores full marks on all these counts. ASSL (Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd.) and WMS (Western Marine Shipyard) which are the most modern and largest shipyards in Bangladesh. Ananda Builders (ASSL), an engineering firm, established a shipbuilding yard on the Buriganga River in 1983. With growing volume of business the yard was shifted in 1985 to its present location on the river Meghna, an hour's drive from the capital city Dhaka.
Western Marine Shipyard Ltd. (WMShL), started our shipbuilding activities since 1994. Finally the company was founded with its own slipways in 2000. It is located in Chittagong the major port city of Bangladesh.

With global shipbuilding orders of very large vessels increasing everyday, a market is emerging in Bangladesh for shipbuilding yards that can concentrate on producing smaller sea-going vessels as the industry leaders like China, South Korea and Vietnam go for the larger container ships, bulkers and tankers. According to shipbuilding experts in this country and abroad, Bangladesh can emerge a surprise competitor in the small to medium ocean-going vessels market. This particularly applies to shipyards that until now were best known for scrapping and breaking ships, and not building them. Two shipbuilders — Meghnaghat-based Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd (ASSL) emerged in 1999 with 80,000 square meters (or 20 acres) of total area and Chittagong-based Western Marine Shipyard Ltd (WMSL) — 40,000 square meters, which formed in 2002. They signed agreements and received foreign orders, with a combined worth of around USD 250 million. They are currently the only two shipyards receiving international orders. Ananda Shipyards said it signed agreements worth around $180 million while Chittagong-based Western Marine put its total orders to more than $70 million. Chairman of Ananda Shipbuilders Abdullahel Bari said:
"It's a huge leap forward for us. If the trend continues, ship building in Bangladesh will be the second largest exporter after garments in 2015,"
Shakhawat Hossain, Managing Director of Western Marine said:
"If we can grab one per cent of the global order for small ships, the amount will be worth $4.0 billion. The global market for small ships is now about $400 billion,"
Western Marine, which was inspired by professor Bari's venture, has also had a remarkable year in 2007 during which it signed deal worth over $80 million including the construction of five multipurpose cargo vessels for a Danish owner, each weighing 4100 tones. Their comments follow what the experts said an epoch-making year for the country's ship building industry, which earlier had been languished in building smaller launches and tankers for local operators. But recently, Leading local shipbuilders received export orders of world-class seagoing small, large and ice-class vessels worth 478 million US dollar with a deadline to deliver those by 2013. Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd. (ASSL) received orders for export of 28 vessels valued at 348 million US dollar from different countries including the Netherlands. On the other hands, Western Marine Shipyard Ltd. (WMSL) got orders worth $130 million to export 12 vessels to a German company styled Grona Shipping. Shipbuilders say the huge orders were bagged due to the government's declaring the sector as thrust one. Ananda then went on to sign two more deals worth $82 million in October and December in the year 2009. Bari said. “Later this month (2009) my company would sign deal with another German company to build four ships, each worth $17.5 million.” Western Marine Shipyard Ltd. (WMSL), which has set up a modern slipway on the bank of the river Karnaphuli, has also signed a letter of intent with two foreign companies to construct 14 small vessels at a cost of around $150 million. It hopes a full agreement with the two companies can be signed later the month of June, 2010. MD of WMSL, Mr. Hossain said: "To be frank, we are now swamped with orders. But with the existing capacity, we can only build vessels worth around $100 million a year," Western Marine Shipyard delivered two largest vessels ever built in the country to a German buyer on Friday, November 26, 2010.

The two 100-metre-long ice-class vessels of the company, Grona Ammersum and Grona Biessum, having a capacity of 5,200 DWT (deadweight tonnage), will be delivered to Grona Shipping GmbH at a ceremony at Chittagong Dry Dock Ltd. The global financial recession dented many developed countries excepting developing ones including Bangladesh and that is why buyers of developed countries expressed their interest in giving shipbuilding orders to Bangladesh. Chairman of Association of Export-Oriented Shipbuilding Industries of Bangladesh (AESIB) Abdullahhel Bari, said. “The shipbuilding industry will be able to get diverse facilities from buyers like the country's garment industry if the government increases shipbuilding facilities.

There is no alternative to increasing shipbuilding facilities to be a major player in the international market as more than 50 percent ships are getting older than 20 years.”
Abdullahhel Bari also said: “To compete with many South Asian countries including India, Bangladesh should have at least 10 shipyards that involve cost of Taka 3,000 crore”

Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd. (ASSL) and Western Marine Shipyard Ltd (WMSL) are mainly producing multipurpose container vessels of 4500 dwt (dwt stands for Deadweight Tonnage, is a measure of how much mass or weight a ship can carry) up to 6100 dwt.
They have customers ranging from the local investors such as BIWTA (Bangladesh In Land Water Transport Authority), Roads and Highways, Chittagong Port Authority, Bangladesh Institute of Marine Technology (BIMT), Bangladesh Police and local tours and travels organizations like Hotel Sarina, Keari Sinbad through to international companies like Stella Shipping and Sea Consult Ltd of Denmark, Wessels Reederei GmbH and Komrowski Maritim GmbH of Germany. Experts said Bangladesh has become a new destination for companies seeking construction of small ocean-going vessels as traditional shipbuilding nations such as South Korea and China now focus on building large ships. Even Vietnam, which is relatively new in ship building, is no longer interested to build small ships weighing up to 25,000 dead weight tones. Adding their reluctance has made India and Indonesia the new destinations for small shipbuilding, Mr. Hossain, MD of Western Marine said that, "They want to build bigger vessels because it is relatively cheaper and requires fewer people" The focus on Bangladesh came in April last year when Ananda signed deals worth around $100 million with two German shipping companies to build eight vessels with capacity for 325 containers by June 2010. Bari, a former professor of Naval Engineering said that: “As far as I know this was the single biggest export order for the country. The contract sealed our name as a new ship building country in the global map."
The Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) said it does not have any data on the size of export orders by individual exporters.