Sea Ports in Bangladesh

Sea Port refers to the establishment for loading and unloading of goods having anchorage facility for ships and embarkation and disembarkation facilities for passengers. Since 80% people of the world live within 100 miles of coastlines, seaports emerged as immense economic important places for people of littoral countries. That explains why seaports and cosmopolitan cities developed along the coastal belts since the ancient period.

Chittagong is one of the oldest ports in the Bay of Bengal region. At present Chittagong and Mongla seaports are the important structures for country's export import business. These two ports deal major portion of country's export import business. Chittagong port is considered as the lifeline of the national economy as 92% of export and import of Bangladesh is conducted through this port. The rest is carried out through Mongla and few other river and land ports. Large ships cannot dock in these two ports due to lack of deep-sea facilities. For this reason' many exporters and importers of Bangladesh use Singapore. Cargoes are transferred between the Chittagong and Singapore ports by lighter ships.

In this context, requirement of a deep-sea port for the country is felt to cope with the present trend of open market economy. Economists think that, deep-sea ports can change the whole import and export scenario of Bangladesh. Due to its geographical location, Bangladesh is important for other land-locked territories and countries of Asia. The Bay of Bengal has given Bangladesh some added advantages as traders from neighboring countries conduct their businesses using Chittagong port.