Chittagong Bureau :
Western Marine has signed contract for building of another 176 TEUs container vessel. The contract was signed with Navstar Shipping Ltd and Dhaka- based ship operating company.
Managing Director of Western Marine Shipyard Mr. Sakhawat Hossain & Managing Director of Navstar Shipping Mr. Adnan Haroon signed the contract in behalf of their respective organization at Lake Shore Hotel in Dhaka. The contract was signed in presence of Western Marine Chairman Saiful Islam, Director .Saeedul Islam and Director of Navstar Shipping Nahyan Haroon.
Through this contract signing Western Marine has secured the newbuilding order for 10 numbers of container ships. The Ministry of Shipping has issued license for 40 numbers of container ships for use in the Pangaon ICT. 14 of these ships are being constructed in Bangladeshi shipyards, which means Western Marine has already secured 30% of this market.
Previously Western Marine has signed contract for building 9 container ships for Pangaon ICT use ships. 4 ships from these orders are under construction & construction other ships are to be initiated soon. Orders for more two ships are in the pipeline. The shipyard MD said the shipyard can accommodate newbuilding of 20 similar ships at a time, meaning the shipyard has the capacity to consume 50% of the newbuilding market for PICT container ships.
These ships will be used to carry containers from Chittagong Port to the newly developed inland container terminal. The ship will be built fully under German class Germanischer Lloyd (GL). Each vessel will cost 31cr +. Each ship will be able to carry 176 TEUs of containers from Chittagong Port to the newly developed Pangaon Inland Container Terminal (PICT) in Narayanganj. Western Marine will be delivering this ships from June 2015 in series. This way inbound container will be transported to Dhaka by inland river route which shall reduce our traffic density in highways.
Statistics say that last year Chittagong port received 15lac TEUs of containers which is also growing by 15% per annum & it will reach an optimum level of 30lac in the coming years. 90% of these goods are transferred to various destinations within the country either by rail or road. Launching of inland container ships will shift this overload from our highways to the river route.
The ships will make a major contribution in our economy for port service enhancement & at the same time she will play a major role in reduction of traffic density in highways by transporting the mass imported goods by river. This way for the first time container ships will ply in our inland channels, which has never been experienced before.
