The Mongla Port, the second busiest seaport of Bangladesh, located in Bagerhat district is all set to get a major facelift after the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) recently approved a Taka 767.25 crore project for procuring ancillary marine vessels in a bid to handle properly the growing number of ocean going ships, which augurs well for Chittagong Port, which is already burdened with increasing import-export activities, being busiest port in Bangladesh.
The approval came at the 15th ECNEC meeting of the current fiscal (FY20) with ECNEC Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Briefing the reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said that a total of 7 projects were approved involving an overall estimated cost of Taka 4,460.54 crore. “Of the total project cost, Taka 4,346.40 crore will come from the Government of Bangladesh while Taka 114.14 crore from concerned organisation’s own fund.”
Of the approved 7 projects, 3 are new while 4 others are revised projects.
Once implemented, the capacity of Mongla Port will increase drastically as it is expected to handle 8.72 lakh TEUs containers by 2025 which is further expected to rise by 45.32 lakh TEUs by 2049.