In Bangladesh, the cargo demand of foreign trade has been strong. The container cargo handled at Chittagong Port, which handles 98% of the container cargo in Bangladesh, has reached the handling capacity of the container terminals in the port resulting in ships constantly waiting to berth. On the other hand, the main facilities of Chittagong Port are located in Karnaphuli River. The maximum draft of vessels entering the port is limited to 10m while the maximum length over all of vessels is limited to 200m. For this reason, the loading capacity of vessels entering the port is 1,800 TEU on average, and thus only feeder service vessels can enter this port.

In order to meet the future cargo demand and taking into account the global trend toward deploying larger vessels, a new port with a sufficient water depth that can accommodate larger vessels needs to be urgently developed.

Based on this situation, the “Matarbari Port Development Project” (funded by ODA loan) was planned to meet the increasing cargo demand, accommodate larger vessels and thereby contribute to the promotion of Bangladesh’s international trade.　In order to maximize the benefits of the port development project, it is indispensable to enhance the capacity of operation, maintenance and management of the new port, and therefore the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh made an official request to the Government of Japan for the Project for Capacity Development on Operation, Maintenance and Management in Matarbari Port.　OCDI was commissioned by JICA to carry out the project in January 2022.

The purpose of this project is to realize smooth and efficient operation of Matarbari Port and thereby contribute to the promotion of Bangladesh’s international trade. The main components of the project are capacity development on operation, maintenance and management of the port including safe navigation management, port promotion policy and formulating a long-term management strategy.　Phase 1 was completed in May 2023 while Phase 2, which began in July 2023, is currently underway.