Bangladesh's RMG export machine -- $38 billion in garments in FY2024 -- moves almost

exclusively through a single maritime gateway. Chittagong Port handled 3,409,069 TEUs in

calendar year 2025, a record, and the port handled roughly 98 percent of the country's

containerised trade. The Chittagong Port Authority's own demand model projects 8.6 million

TEU capacity needed by 2035. That is 2.5 times today's throughput in under a decade. No

single port expansion can deliver that. The question is whether three concurrent projects

-- Payra, Laldia, and Matarbari -- will materialise as capacity, or remain as plans.

Payra: The Cost-Savings Thesis and Its Silt Problem

Payra Port was conceived as the Western Bangladesh gateway: closer to power plant coal

imports and positioned to serve Khulna-Rajshahi hinterland trade once the Padma Bridge

Rail Link opened freight corridors. The first terminal's 650-metre jetty can berth three

200-metre vessels simultaneously, handling 3,000-3,500 TEU container ships. Payra Port

Authority set tariffs 20-30 percent below Chittagong rates -- a meaningful incentive for

cost-sensitive shippers. The official full operability target is July 2026.

The problem is the Rabnabad Channel. Designed to hold 10.5 metres of navigable depth,

the channel fell to approximately 6 metres at high tide by late 2025 following heavy

siltation within six months of its April 2024 handover. A maintenance dredging project

worth Tk 6,500 crore remained unapproved as of early 2026. Without a dredged channel

of at least 9-10 metres, the vessels Payra is designed to receive cannot reliably call

on the port. The cost-savings thesis is real; the silt problem is also real. The July 2026

operability date depends on dredging approval that has not yet been granted.

Laldia: The Private Capital Bet on Chittagong

On November 17, 2025, the Chittagong Port Authority and APM Terminals -- the port

subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk -- signed a 30-year PPP concession for the Laldia

Container Terminal in Chittagong. The deal, at $550 million the largest European FDI in

Bangladesh port history, uses a design-finance-build-operate model: APM Terminals fully

funds, builds, and operates the terminal, which is structurally different from all previous

Bangladesh port investments. The local partner is QNS Container Services Ltd.

Laldia will operate as Bangladesh's first "green port," targeting electrified yard

equipment and low-emission handling. Initial annual capacity is 800,000 TEU, scalable to

1 million TEU through technology gains. Target commissioning is 2030. If delivered, Laldia

alone increases Bangladesh's total container capacity by more than 40 percent.

The strategic logic of putting new private capacity at Chittagong rather than a greenfield

location is defensible: deepest existing channel in Bangladesh, established shipping line

calls, lowest last-mile logistics cost to Dhaka. The risk is that it compounds the

Chittagong concentration rather than diversifying it. Laldia adds capacity at the existing

geographic choke point.

Matarbari: The Long Game for Direct Mother-Vessel Calls

The Matarbari Deep-Sea Port at Cox's Bazar is the project that could most fundamentally

change Bangladesh's maritime economics. Bangladesh currently pays a transshipment premium

-- estimated at $400-500 per TEU -- because Chittagong cannot receive deep-draft post-Panamax

mother vessels. Container cargo must be transshipped via Colombo or Port Klang, adding cost

and time to every container moving to Europe or North America.

Matarbari changes this. The navigation channel is 16 metres deep (versus approximately

9.5 metres at Chittagong), 350 metres wide and 14.3 kilometres long. Jetties accommodate

vessels with 8,000-8,200 TEU capacity and up to 18-metre draft with tidal assistance. The

Phase 1 terminal (460-metre container jetty, 300-metre multipurpose jetty) is under

construction by Japanese joint venture Penta-Ocean Construction and TOA, with dredging

underway since 2025. JICA has committed the project financing, total cost Tk 24,300 crore.

Phase 1 targets operations by 2029; commercial mother-vessel service is expected from 2030.

The caveat is the same one that applies to all large Bangladeshi infrastructure: execution

risk. The 2029 Phase 1 date requires construction completion and channel dredging to proceed

on schedule -- something that has historically been difficult in the Cox's Bazar-Moheshkhali

corridor, where multiple power, LNG, and infrastructure projects compete for the same

marine contracting resources.

The Regional Benchmark Gap

India's Mundra Port handled approximately 6.6 million TEUs in 2024; Sri Lanka's Colombo

handled approximately 7 million TEUs. Bangladesh's entire national container throughput in

CY2025 was 3.41 million TEU -- below Colombo's transhipment hub figure on its own.

Bangladesh does not need to match Colombo; it needs to reduce the cost of routing through

Colombo. Matarbari is the instrument for that. Laldia adds the greenfield private-sector

capacity. Payra, if its silt problem is resolved, covers the southwestern hinterland.

The missing piece is governance coordination. The three projects are under different

authorities (Payra Port Authority, Chittagong Port Authority, Chittagong Port Authority

again for Matarbari) with different financing structures, timelines, and risk profiles.

Shipping Minister Shaikh Rabiul Alam has articulated port diversification as a priority.

What the ministry has not yet published is a coordinated multi-port development plan that

sequences Payra dredging approval, Laldia construction oversight, and Matarbari Phase 1

commissioning with ICD and feeder-route investments to make the new capacity accessible

to exporters once it is built.

Policy Implications

The capacity mathematics work: 3.41 million TEU (Chittagong CY2025) plus 800,000 TEU

(Laldia) plus 600,000-1.1 million TEU (Matarbari Phase 1) approaches 5.5 million TEU --

enough to handle demand through approximately 2030 on current growth trajectories. But

capacity becoming throughput requires three things simultaneously: the vessels must call

(which means competitive tariffs, fast turnaround, and sufficient draft); the hinterland

must be connected (which means Payra dredging, Mongla freight corridor activation, and

ICD expansion at Pangaon and Kamalapur); and the regulatory environment must not price

private capital out (which means the 30-year Laldia concession must be contractually

stable through changes in government). All three are policy choices, not infrastructure

outcomes.