The history of indigenous shipbuilding in Bangladesh goes back a long way. It is one of the early industries developed in Bengal based on its old business of building boats and sea vessels. Bangladesh has a strong background in building ships since ancient times. Many countries of Asia and Europe regularly bought ships built in Chittagong.
Bangladesh has a strong background in building ships since ancient times. It is quite natural in that Bangladesh has more than 200 rivers with a total length of about 22,155km plus a long coast line on the Bay of Bengal. It is little known today that Bangladesh was the center of building ocean-going vessels in Asia between the 15th and 17th century.
In the early 19th century, the shipyards of Chittagong built many commercial ships of up to 1,000 tons and also British navy vessels that participated in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Due to this historic prosperous background and also a natural geographical advantage, there are presently more than 200 shipbuilding and ship-repair yards in Bangladesh.
Prospect of Shipbuilding Industry in Bangladesh:
The history of indigenous shipbuilding in Bangladesh goes back a long way. It began with wooden-bodied passenger vessels having two decks and gradually improved to steel-body construction of multi-deck passenger carriers in the eighties as the passenger transportation in reverine route peaked.
Cargo vessels under inland shipping ordinance began during the same period with sizes from 200 DWT to 500 DWT. Such construction did not require any organized dockyard or shipyard. These vessels were built on bare land on the riverside, scattered around the country especially where electricity was available on the river banks and construction of inland vessels flourished.
With the ship-breaking