Western Marine Shipyard Limited has received ship export orders worth Tk 6.06 billion from abroad, its chief said.
The Chattogram-based leading ship-maker is building 10 ocean-going vessels and boats for exporting to three different countries.
"Norway, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India have given orders to our company for building 10 ships," Sakhawat Hossain, Managing Director (MD) of Western Marine, told the FE.
"We are building six ocean-going ships for India, one Atlantic-going fishing trawler for Norway, and three tankers and offshore support vessels (OSV) for UAE. We will supply those ships within next one to two years."
"In addition to the export orders of 10 ships, we have also received orders of 26 ships, tankers and boats from different local companies," Mr Hossain told this correspondent at his shipyard in Patiya, Chattogram last week.
Western Marine is one of the country's largest shipbuilding companies, which started export of ocean-going vessels in 2008 after bagging orders from Germany.
Since 2008, Bangladeshi shipyards have manufactured and exported ferries, cargo vessels, and ocean-going multi-purpose ships for different countries including Denmark, Germany, Norway, Finland, India, New Zealand, UAE, Kenya, and Uganda etc.
The Western Marine MD said they are now building six ocean-going cargo-ships for Indian Jindal Group, each with the capacity of 8,000 dead-weight tonnage (DWT).
"Besides, we are building two ocean-going tankers and one OSV for UAE, and a sea-going fishing trawler for Norway."
The price of the six vessels of Indian company is Tk 3.60 billion, the fishing trawler of Norway is Tk 1.60 billion, and the three ships and tankers for UAE is Tk 860 million.
Mr Shakhawat Hossain said they have upgraded their shipyard to a world-class one, which is hailed by many foreign buyers, diplomats and certification companies.
"Initially we imported some equipment like propeller, shafts and crafts etc from abroad. Now we're building those in our shipyard using own manpower, resulting in more value addition to the vessels."
"As our labour cost is lower than many other ship-making countries, including China, Japan, South Korea and India, Bangladesh will be able to grab a significant portion of the ship export market within the next 10 years," the Western Marine chief further said.
"With the financial support of the government and Asian Development Bank (ADB), we are developing skilled manpower in our shipyard who will enhance the capacity of Bangladesh's shipbuilding industry," he added.
