What is the deal on the port deals?
Beyond physical capacity, the project is expected to generate several thousand direct jobs in construction, operations, and logistics, while catalysing indirect employment across trucking, warehousing, and ancillary services
Bangladesh's port politics have shifted with the recent agreements on the Pangaon Inland Container Terminal and the Laldia Container Terminal. For years, Pangaon remained underutilised and Laldia was stuck in disputes, but now both have been handed to foreign operators with the promise of modernisation and efficiency.
To see why this matters, it helps to place Chattogram Port—the country's main maritime gateway—in a global and regional context. Chattogram handles about 92% of Bangladesh's seaborne trade and nearly all container traffic, yet its performance lags behind peers.
On Lloyd's List of the world's top 100 ports, Chattogram ranks 67th, well behind giants like Shanghai, Singapore, Colombo, Mundra, and Karachi. Chattogram's vessel queuing averages and its berth productivity are among the lowest globally. These underscore why Bangladesh cannot afford to keep its ports insulated from global expertise.
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The official narrative
The Pangaon and Laldia deals are Bangladesh's bid to stay relevant in a South Asian corridor increasingly dominated by ports with foreign operators and global connectivity.
The Laldia agreement with APM Terminals (Maersk) is a 33-year public–private partnership, involving $550 million in investment to build and operate a facility capable of handling 800,000–1 million TEUs annually. Located near the Karnaphuli River mouth, it will accommodate larger vessels, reduce reliance on feeder ships, and ease congestion at existing jetties.
Beyond physical capacity, the project is expected to generate several thousand direct jobs in construction, operations, and logistics, while catalysing indirect employment across trucking, warehousing, and ancillary services. APM Terminals will introduce advanced port management systems, automation, and training programs, ensuring significant technology transfer to local operators and workforce — raising Bangladesh's port standards closer to global benchmarks.
The Pangaon deal with Medlog SA (MSC Group) is a 22-year operating contract, backed by $40 million investment, aimed at finally turning around a terminal that has been underperforming since its construction. Medlog will deploy its own container fleet, barges, and digital systems to integrate Pangaon into regional supply chains. The revitalisation is expected to create hundreds of direct jobs in terminal operations and vessel handling, while indirectly supporting employment along the Dhaka–Chittagong corridor.
Medlog's deployment of digital tracking, fleet integration, and supply chain management tools will transfer know-how to local staff, embedding modern practices in inland port operations and enhancing Bangladesh's connectivity to regional trade networks.
Together, these projects promise not just capacity expansion but a qualitative leap in operational standards, employment generation, technology transfer, and connectivity. They mark a shift from underperforming assets to globally benchmarked facilities, with ripple effects across labour markets, supply chains, and institutional learning.
The global competition
Around the world, global giants like PSA International (Singapore), COSCO Shipping Ports (China), DP World (UAE), and Hutchison Ports (Hong Kong) manage terminals far from their home bases. COSCO's control of Piraeus in Greece has transformed it into one of Europe's fastest-growing ports, though not without debate about Chinese influence. DP World runs London Gateway in the UK, terminals in Africa, and Australia, while Hutchison operates in Rotterdam, Felixstowe, and Panama.
Sri Lanka's Colombo Port, operated partly by China Merchants Port Holdings, has positioned itself as a transhipment hub for South Asia, handling nearly twice Chattogram's volume. India has aggressively modernised Mundra (Adani Ports) and Vizhinjam (Adani with foreign partners), both capable of handling mother vessels directly, bypassing feeder dependence. Pakistan's Gwadar Port, operated by China Overseas Port Holding Company, is still underutilised but strategically significant under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. Karachi and Port Qasim, though smaller, have invested in efficiency upgrades that keep turnaround times competitive.
These experiences suggest a dual lesson: foreign operators can dramatically improve efficiency and connectivity, but they also raise strategic questions about sovereignty, especially when the operator's home government has geopolitical ambitions.
Sovereignty or cartel protection?
The concerns have two distinct layers. The first is the sovereignty question. Ports are critical national infrastructure, gateways for trade and energy, and potential nodes of strategic leverage. Handing operational control to foreign firms inevitably raises questions about whether Bangladesh is ceding too much ground. These are not trivial worries; they reflect the reality that ports are more than commercial assets; they are arteries of national security.
The second layer is more parochial. Local operators, unions, and entrenched business groups have long enjoyed the rents of inefficiency. Slow cargo clearance, monopolistic practices, and opaque contracts have been lucrative precisely because they kept outsiders at bay. Now, faced with competition from foreign firms, these groups invoke sovereignty as a shield. Their real fear is not foreign domination but the loss of exclusivity. In effect, sovereignty becomes a convenient slogan to protect cartelized privileges.
The inefficiencies at Chattogram Port signal the presence of cartelised port management.
Inefficiencies are actively sustained by unions, clearing agents, and transport syndicates who profit from congestion and opacity. Dockworker unions monopolise labour supply, clearing agents thrive on delays that justify 'speed money,' and trucking syndicates collude to inflate inland transport costs. Sovereignty, in this context, is less about national dignity than about defending entrenched privileges that would vanish under competitive, transparent management.
Experience from many other countries facing strikingly similar debates suggest that resistance can be managed not by retreating from foreign participation, but by embedding it in transparent contracts and regulatory safeguards to build enabling mechanisms so local workers and businesses share the gains.
Moving forward
Bangladesh's choice is stark. Either it embraces competition and efficiency, or it remains trapped in a cycle of underperformance in infrastructure expansion and efficiency upgradation. Sovereignty concerns can be addressed through contracts and oversight that incentivise foreign operators to act as partners rather than overlords.
The Pangaon and Laldia deals are not just about containers and cranes; they are about whether Bangladesh can break free from the grip of cartelized privilege to embrace a future where its ports operate at global speed. The ports cannot be held hostage to inefficiency in the name of patriotism.
Zahid Hussain is a former lead economist of The World Bank, Dhaka Office
