Economical Analysis on Bangladesh shipping future: Shipbuilders from Ship breakers
Introduction: Bangladesh has a very rich history in the shipbuilding industry found in the writings of many travelers who visited Bengal more than two hundred years ago. That time the Bangladeshi made ships used in many countries. But the industry, based mainly in Chittagong, started waning in the latter part of the nineteenth century due to the use of steam engines and the discriminatory policy of British colonial rulers despite Bengali ships were cheaper and more durable. Shipbuilding did not vanish, but retreated to focus on local demand and today there are about 300 small and large dockyards, generating about 100,000 jobs. The ship-breaking sector in Sitakunda that meets 80 per cent of the country's demand for steel, earning the exchequer annual revenue of over Tk 800 crore. Considering the negative impact on the environment, the ship owners choose under- developed countries like Bangladesh and India for breaking their old and rundown vessels.
Ship breaking knowledge and circumstances attracted many buyers from around the world to make Bangladesh a small size ship builder country. There are few reasons as major ship building nations are now only interested in making larger ship as comparatively heavier ships are cheaper than that of a small ship and that also take concentrated effort and plan from the builder company.
On the other hand Vietnam is now one of the main destinations of foreign ship buyers. But all ship building plants in that country have been booked until 2010.So eventually the buyers had to search for a new nation which has the previous knowledge and skill on this sector as interestingly this sector developed in Singapore with labor force from Bangladesh. Around 80 per cent of workers in Singapore ship building industry are from Bangladesh.
The last but not least reason is developing dockyard in many places of Bangladesh is relatively cheap. And in many places it is possible to turn the existing ship breaking yards to shipbuilding yards. Some of the local companies are also allocating their budget for betterment of the shipyard as real-estate company Rangs Properties Ltd, steel maker PHP Group, consumer products leader Meghna Group, trading house Khan Brothers, engineering products maker Bengal Electric Ltd and automobile distributor Nitol-Niloy Group. Some foreign skilled and established companies are coming as joint venture too as for example Meghna Group and South Korea’s STX.
Introduction: Bangladesh has a very rich history in the shipbuilding industry found in the writings of many travelers who visited Bengal more than two hundred years ago. That time the Bangladeshi made ships used in many countries. But the industry, based mainly in Chittagong, started waning in the latter part of the nineteenth century due to the use of steam engines and the discriminatory policy of British colonial rulers despite Bengali ships were cheaper and more durable. Shipbuilding did not vanish, but retreated to focus on local demand and today there are about 300 small and large dockyards, generating about 100,000 jobs. The ship-breaking sector in Sitakunda that meets 80 per cent of the country's demand for steel, earning the exchequer annual revenue of over Tk 800 crore. Considering the negative impact on the environment, the ship owners choose under- developed countries like Bangladesh and India for breaking their old and rundown vessels.
Ship breaking knowledge and circumstances attracted many buyers from around the world to make Bangladesh a small size ship builder country. There are few reasons as major ship building nations are now only interested in making larger ship as comparatively heavier ships are cheaper than that of a small ship and that also take concentrated effort and plan from the builder company.
On the other hand Vietnam is now one of the main destinations of foreign ship buyers. But all ship building plants in that country have been booked until 2010.So eventually the buyers had to search for a new nation which has the previous knowledge and skill on this sector as interestingly this sector developed in Singapore with labor force from Bangladesh. Around 80 per cent of workers in Singapore ship building industry are from Bangladesh.
The last but not least reason is developing dockyard in many places of Bangladesh is relatively cheap. And in many places it is possible to turn the existing ship breaking yards to shipbuilding yards. Some of the local companies are also allocating their budget for betterment of the shipyard as real-estate company Rangs Properties Ltd, steel maker PHP Group, consumer products leader Meghna Group, trading house Khan Brothers, engineering products maker Bengal Electric Ltd and automobile distributor Nitol-Niloy Group. Some foreign skilled and established companies are coming as joint venture too as for example Meghna Group and South Korea’s STX.