China Bangladesh Photo: VCG

The Mongla Port modernization and expansion project—a landmark Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure cooperation project in Mongla, southwestern Bangladesh—broke ground on Thursday, with a Chinese company serving as the main constructor. 

The inauguration marked an important outcome of deeper China-Bangladesh cooperation and a key step for the South Asian economy to improve its national transport and logistics system and raise the level of its opening-up.

The project make use of about 368 meters of shoreline and build two 20,000-deadweight tonnage container berths, together with roughly 227,000 square meters of container yard, a container freight station, an integrated command and control center and related support facilities, the Global Times learned from China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), the project's engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor. 

Mongla Port is a major gateway linking southwestern Bangladesh to international markets. The design annual container throughput of Mongla Port is 350,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEUs), with Chinese standards, technology and equipment being applied. The construction period is around 42 months.

Once completed, the project will markedly raise the port's specialized and modern container-handling capacity, strengthen the overall carrying and logistics support capacity of Bangladesh's port system, and promote efficient connections between maritime shipping and road and rail transport, while also bringing down the trade and logistic cost. In such a way, it will provide major support for the South Asian economy to boost export competitiveness, and create better conditions for industrial development and local people's livelihoods, CCECC told the Global Times on Thursday.

In addition to port renovation, the Chinese company said that it will also develop in parallel the China-Bangladesh Mongla Port Economic Zone, coordinating port construction with park development to attract manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, and port-adjacent industries. 

"This is intended to create a virtuous cycle in which the port supports the park and industry feeds cargo growth at the port, further unlocking the development potential of southwestern Bangladesh, creating local jobs and skills, and turning upgraded port capacity into tangible gains in industrial development and regional prosperity," the company noted, stressing that it aims to make the project a demonstration of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and an important platform for mutually beneficial China-Bangladesh cooperation.

Global Times