Construction of an expansion of Mongla Port in southwestern Bangladesh formally began with a groundbreaking ceremony held at the port on Thursday, November 5.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Tarique Rahman laid the foundation stone for the project, which will add two container berths for vessels of 20,000 DWT, along with container yards and 49 sets of port handling equipment.
The contractor gave a design throughput of approximately 350,000 TEUs per year and a contractual construction period of 42 months.
China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation, is responsible for engineering, procurement and construction. The Mongla Port Authority is implementing the project under the Ministry of Shipping.
The new facilities will be designated berths 10 and 11 and will have a combined quay length of 368 metres. According to CCECC, the scope includes about 227,000 square metres of container yard, as well as a freight station for containers and a centre for integrated command and control.
The work is jointly financed by Bangladesh and China.
A US$335.78 million loan agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China was signed on October 10. The loan is concessional, with interest set at two per cent and repayment over 20 years, including a five-year grace period.
The Mongla Port Authority has stated an existing annual container handling capacity of 100,000 TEUs. The port handled 29,714 TEUs in the 2025–26 fiscal year, up 38.49 per cent year on year.
At the ceremony, Rahman said the project would allow container trains to run directly between Dhaka's Kamalapur Inland Container Depot and Mongla. He also called for reliable navigability and safe vessel movements.
The authority has identified the need to keep the port's 144-kilometre channel navigable as a major challenge. In 2021, CCECC and a partner were awarded a contract to deepen the inner bar so that it could accommodate containerships with 10-metre draughts.