This includes two new deepwater sea ports to add to the country’s principal facility at Chittagong: one at Sonadia Island and another situated in Patuakhali. The government hopes Sonadia will become a shipping hub for north eastern India, China’s Yunnan province, Myanmar and landlocked Nepal and Bhutan.
But it’s a long way up for inward traffic. Inland ports handle about 40% of the nation’s foreign trade, and the network connects most of the country’s major cities and commercial centres but it suffers from a number of woes, including shrinkage during the dry season – and even the main route can’t accommodate containers. Further, one study suggests that overall box handling charges around Chittagong are high because you have to factor in what you might term “local, unofficial and ancillary payments” which can add 40% to the cost.
A possible solution for the congestion at the port end of the Dhaka-Chittagong corridor (which runs road, rail and waterway in parallel) might be to take box processing activities outside the port. The waterway is busy with bulk traffic, and the practice of stripping or stuffing of containers in, or nearby, the port adds to the jams. So, encouraging the private sector to build inland container depot capacity and handling infrastructure on both ends of the corridor might provide a good, cheap option for both bulk and boxes, getting more off the crowded roadways.
While mere speculation at the moment, things may be looking up. The government’s stated aim is for an Integrated Multimodal Transport Policy which “aims to build a secure, dependable and uninterrupted transport network, addressing problems related to road, rail, inland water transport, including access to ports”. In a perfect world this would knit it all together, but there’s no sign of positive movement yet.