Dhaka Hands Chattogram’s Busiest Box Terminal to DP World for 15 Years
The Dubai-based operator will invest about $150 million in upgrades, while the government expects faster cargo handling and faces opposition from port workers and political groups.
Dhaka — Bangladesh has given Dubai-based DP World a 15-year concession to run the New Mooring Container Terminal at Chattogram port, betting that outside management and fresh capital can cut the delays that have long slowed the country's main trade gateway.
The deal was signed on Thursday at the Invest Bangladesh auditorium. Chittagong Port Authority chairman Rear Admiral SM Moniruzzaman and DP World executive chairman Essa Kazim put their names to the agreement. Shipping Minister Sheikh Rabiul Alam, Invest Bangladesh chairman Ashik Chowdhury and senior DP World executives were present. Ownership of the terminal, the land and the core infrastructure stays with the port authority. DP World takes operational control, including the overflow container yard added in 2015.
NCT, in service since 2007, is the port's largest container terminal, with an 820-metre quay and four berths. It now handles about 1.23 million twenty-foot equivalent units a year. Officials expect that figure to rise to 1.6–1.8 million as equipment and yard systems are upgraded.
The commercial terms are unusually specific for a port concession in Bangladesh. DP World will pay Tk 600 crore as a signing fee: a quarter now, the rest before it takes over the gates. The government is to keep 67 percent of handling revenue on each TEU. On present charges, that share is put at roughly $90–$100 a box, though the exact take will move with volume and tariffs. The operator has also pledged about $150 million to modernise the terminal. Some local reports put the planned investment above Tk 1,000 crore.
Ministers framed the handover as part of a wider shift toward several foreign operators at Chattogram, rather than a single manager. RSGT International, AP Møller-Maersk and Medlog are already on the port. Alam said the aim is better service, more reliable schedules and a supply chain that does not rest on one operator. State Minister for Shipping Md Razib Ahsan argued that higher throughput would also lift customs and other public revenue, and that the national interest was built into the contract.
The efficiency gap the government wants closed is large. Container dwell time at the port is about 9.4 days and ship stay about 2.53 days, both well above Jawaharlal Nehru Port in India and Cai Mep in Vietnam. Trucks can wait around 24 hours. Officials say the first round of modernisation should be done within six months, with the terminal at full upgraded capacity in about two years. They hope truck waits fall to two hours in the first year and eventually to one, vessel turnaround to 1–1.5 days, and dwell time to three or four days. World Bank figures cited at the ceremony suggest that cutting dwell time by a single day could lift Bangladesh's exports by about 7.4 percent — a direct stake for the garment trade, which lives on lead times.
Job security was the other promise. Alam said existing port staff would not be laid off and that gross pay would stay as it is. He argued that automation and new equipment could raise demand for skilled workers rather than shrink the payroll. He also conceded that part of the opposition is about influence as well as employment, and said the government would talk to anyone with a concrete grievance.
That opposition did not wait for the ink to dry. Protesters gathered outside the Dhaka venue and called for the deal to be scrapped. In Chattogram, the Bandar Rokkha Sangram Parishad — a platform of pro-BNP worker groups at the port — gave the government three days to open talks, announced a token hunger strike for Monday, and warned of a wider movement if there is no discussion by 11 October. Left groups, including the Communist Party of Bangladesh and factions of Basad, joined a separate rally and procession.
Parishad leaders said the contract was signed without its terms being made public, and that no handover would be accepted unless workers agreed to it.
After the ceremony, Kazim's delegation met Prime Minister Tarique Rahman at the Secretariat. They discussed trade and investment with the UAE, port management and logistics. Rahman asked DP World to look at free trade zones and rail-linked inland container depots. The company said it was interested.
The concession sits on an older political foundation: a 2019 understanding between the Dubai government and Bangladesh's PPP Authority on infrastructure partnerships. Whether the 15-year bet pays off will depend less on the signing photos than on whether dwell times actually fall — and whether the labour dispute is settled before the terminal changes hands.