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itself a position in the global market, as the demand for smaller
vessels has increased, shipbuilders and analysts said yesterday.
"Orders for small ships have gone up because of the global financial
crisis," said Sakhawat Hossain, managing director of Western Marine
Shipyard Ltd, an export-oriented shipbuilder. "Giant shipbuilders
cannot capitalise on this new market demand, as their projects will
prove to be unfeasible because of the high overhead costs they
bear," he said. He was speaking at the 'BFTI National Shipbuilding
Conference', organised by Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI)
at Sonargaon Hotel, where analysts and shipbuilders focused on
Bangladesh's potential to secure a position in the global
shipbuilding market. Shipping Minister Shajahan Khan, Head of
European Commission Delegation to Bangladesh Stefan Frowein and
Danish Ambassador Einar Hebogaard Jensen were present, while BFTI
Chief Executive Officer Prof MA Taslim chaired the event. Khan said
the government will facilitate the shipbuilding industry to allow it
to excel. Analysts observed that Bangladesh has the scope to emerge as
an export based shipbuilding nation within a decade because of
advantages like cheap labour, a presence of nearly 1 ,00 ,000
skilled and semiskilled workers and industry related educational and
training institutes. A long history of maritime activity and a
favourable geographical location also placed the country at a
favourable position, with about 200 shipyards and workshops to cater
to the domestic needs for water vessels. However, Bangladesh's
opportunity to emerge as a shipbuilding nation under global standards
was created in the last couple of years, as other traditional
shipbuilding nations showed little interests in making small ships.
Two leading local shipbuilders -- Ananda Shipyard and Slipways Ltd
and Western Marine Shipyard Ltd -- have bagged orders to make over
40 small vessels worth about $0.6 billion mainly from European
buyers. Including these two shipbuilders, according to analysts,
about 10 local shipyards are capable of making ships up to 10 ,000
DWT as per international standards. But capacity upgrades and
expansion are needed for a majority of them to compete in the global
arena with shipbuilders in other countries, such as Vietnam,
Indonesia and India. "By 2012, the world will need more than 10,000
vessels, mostly small to medium sized," said the Western Marine MD.
His remarks came at a time when some local shipyard operators took a
go-slow approach in expanding yard capacity to make ships of
international standards, as recession drastically cut demand for new
shipbuilding orders in 2009. "But this is of little relevance to the
Bangladeshi shipbuilding industry, as the market for certain sections
of small-ships and vessels of various types is unaffected by
recession," said Dr Abdullahel Bari, chairman of Ananda Shipyard,
which pioneered in winning orders to build ships for export. Prof
Khabirul Haque Chowdhury, head of the Depart-ment of Naval
Architecture and Marine Engineering of Bangla-desh University of
Engineering and Technology (BUET), said recession has caused a drop
in demand for large vessels. "Shipbuilding recession will have to
end. Orders will be activated, may be of different sizes," he said,
suggesting yards go for expansion and upgrades to win export orders.
Citing examples from South Korea, he said in the past recession, the
country expanded its capacity instead of reducing business scales. "
They succeeded," he said.
