Domestic entrepreneurs are interested in buying ships to transport goods by sea. Since 2014, there has been a decline in domestic investment in the purchase of ships. The entrepreneurs were also selling the ships bought previously then as scrap. The situation was such that the number of ships carrying the flag of Bangladesh dropped from 68 to 40. That number has changed to 75 now.
Domestic entrepreneurs are now inclined to buy new ships after overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic. For this reason, in January-October 2021, 12 sea-going ships were bought and launched by local entrepreneurs. In the past, there was a tendency to buy ships only for open goods transportation, but now entrepreneurs are buying container ships and even ships for transporting fuel oil.
Bangladeshi flag-carrying ships are registered by the government’s Department of Shipping. Captain Gias Uddin Ahmed, Principal Officer of the company, said, ‘The government has increased the number of facilities in the budget to increase the number of ships carrying domestic flags. The Ministry of Shipping has enacted the ‘Bangladesh Flag Carrier Ships (Protection) Act 2019’, obliging to transport 50% of the goods by sea on domestic ships. At the same time, priority is being given to dock domestic ships in Chittagong port. Due to these reasons, the number of domestic flag-carrying ships is increasing again.’
He said, ‘Large industrial groups are still investing in buying their own ships to transport their goods. Due to this, a total of 12 ships have been added to the fleet of the domestic industrial group in the last 10 months. Almost all the ships purchased have a cargo capacity of 50,000 tonnes. In all, there are now 75 sea-going Bangladeshi flag-carrying ships. A few more ships will be added between November and December.’
Of the 12 newly added ships, five are from the Meghna Group, four from the Karnaphuli Group and two from the Bashundhara Group were added to the fleet. They have invested about two and a half thousand crore taka.
Two ships carrying LPG and oil have been newly added to the fleet of Bashundhara Group, the country’s leading industrial company. These are ‘Bashundhara Warriors’ of 46 thousand tonnes and ‘Bashundhara Malika’ of 30 thousand tonnes. With this, the total number of ships in Bashundhara Group’s fleet has increased to eight. Bashundhara Group is in the process of purchasing several more ships to transport its own goods.
Member of Parliament Saber Hossain Chowdhury’s Karnaphuli Group’s fleet already had open goods and container ships. In 2020, they started shipping goods from Bangladesh by adding the first two container ships. In 2021, four more sea-going container vessels have been added. These are ‘HR Hera’, ‘HR Farha’, ‘HR Arai’ and ‘HR Reha’. Among the domestic flag-carrying ships, the Karnaphuli group has only sea-going container ships. With this the number of ships in their fleet stands at six.
