When the foundation stone of the Laldia Container Terminal is laid on August 30, attention will understandably focus on the scale of the project: a $550 million foreign investment, a modern green terminal and a substantial addition to Chattogram Port's container-handling capacity. The government now expects construction to take about three years, with operations targeted for 2029. But Bangladesh should ask a bigger question. Can Laldia do more than handle additional containers? Can it begin changing Bangladesh from a predominantly feeder market into a mainline gateway?
That question matters because Bangladesh's maritime constraint has never been capacity alone. For decades, most long-haul containerised trade has depended on smaller feeder vessels connecting Chattogram with transshipment hubs such as Colombo and Singapore, from where cargo joins larger ships bound for Europe and North America. APM Terminals says Chattogram's present limitation of around 2,700 TEUs contributes to this dependence and that transshipment can add seven to 14 days to supply chains through additional handling and waiting.
LALDIA COULD ALTER THAT EQUATION: The terminal is being developed by APM Terminals, part of AP Moller-Maersk, under a public-private partnership with Chattogram Port Authority. Official project information puts the investment at about $550 million and planned annual capacity at more than 800,000 TEUs. More importantly, APM says the new facility could accommodate container ships of up to 6,000 TEUs-more than twice the size currently practical at Chattogram. The published design includes a 613-metre quay and 10.5-metre draught, alongside electrified and increasingly automated cargo-handling equipment.
WHY DOES 6,000 TEUS MATTER?: Not simply because a larger ship carries more boxes. Vessel size changes shipping economics. Larger ships can lower unit costs, improve equipment utilisation and give carriers greater flexibility in designing service rotations. But shipping lines do not deploy larger vessels because a country builds a bigger terminal. They deploy them when cargo volume, port productivity, schedule reliability and the economics of the entire service loop justify doing so.
This is where the discussion about Laldia should move beyond cranes, quay walls and storage yards.
APM Terminals itself has described the potential network effect. It argues that the ability to handle vessels of up to 6,000 TEUs could allow larger ships operating between Asia, Europe and North America to call at Chattogram and create possibilities for direct mainline connectivity. That should not be interpreted as an announcement that direct Europe or North America services have already been decided. Shipping networks are commercial decisions. But it means something important: the physical constraint that has helped keep Bangladesh predominantly within the feeder system could become substantially less restrictive.
CARGO CONCENTRATION THEN BECOMES CRUCIAL: Bangladesh already generates a large and relatively concentrated export base, led by ready-made garments. As exports grow and diversify into footwear, leather products, pharmaceuticals and other manufactured goods, the volume available to support larger vessels should also grow. The question is whether enough predictable cargo can be assembled week after week to support economically sustainable mainline calls.
EUROPE APPEARS THE MOST COMPELLING OPPORTUNITY: Instead of routing most European cargo through an intermediate Asian hub, a sufficiently productive Laldia could allow carriers to examine direct or substantially more direct service patterns between Chattogram and European gateways. A 6,000-TEU vessel does not need to operate as a simple Chattogram-Europe shuttle. Liner shipping is built around rotations. Bangladesh could form one node in a broader service linking Asian origins, Chattogram and European ports, with cargo carried on multiple legs of the same rotation.
This is why network economics matter more than looking at Bangladesh's export cargo in isolation.
APM Terminals and Maersk also bring an unusual dimension to the project. According to Bangladesh's PPP Authority, Maersk already handles almost 30 percent of containers moving into and out of Bangladesh. APM Terminals says it operates independently and serves shipping lines on non-discriminatory terms, as a successful terminal must attract multiple carriers. Nevertheless, being part of one of the world's largest integrated shipping and logistics groups gives APM deep knowledge of what global carriers require from a terminal: predictable berth windows, rapid vessel turnaround, equipment reliability, safety and dependable landside operations. If Laldia delivers those conditions, its influence could extend well beyond Maersk.
Other global carriers and alliances will make their own calculations. Once a port can accommodate larger vessels efficiently and sufficient cargo exists, competition itself can encourage new service configurations. That is how the significance of Laldia should ultimately be judged-not by whether one particular shipping line shifts its cargo there, but by whether the terminal makes Chattogram commercially more attractive across liner networks. The implications for Bangladesh's exporters could be considerable.
For garments, logistics time is increasingly part of competitiveness. A factory may manufacture efficiently, but those gains are partly lost when finished products spend additional days moving through an uncertain transshipment chain. APM specifically identifies improved schedule predictability and lower inventory costs among the potential network benefits of Laldia. For global fashion buyers managing short seasons, changing consumer demand and tightly controlled inventories, reliability can matter almost as much as freight rates.
That creates an important policy perspective. Bangladesh should not assess Laldia only through port dwell time. The more meaningful measure is factory-to-store time.
If a highly productive terminal, larger vessels and better network connectivity remove several days from the total supply chain, the economic benefit travels far beyond the port. Exporters gain reliability, buyers can carry less buffer inventory, manufacturers can respond faster to orders, and Bangladesh becomes a more attractive sourcing location.
North America represents a more ambitious second horizon. Regular direct connectivity to the US East or West Coast would require sufficient cargo, appropriate vessel deployment and a commercially viable wider rotation. It would be premature to predict such a service today. Yet once Chattogram can reliably handle vessels in the 6,000-TEU range, the idea moves from being constrained principally by port capability to being a question of network economics. APM itself includes North America when describing the mainline possibilities created by larger vessel access.
None of this, however, is guaranteed by the groundbreaking ceremony.
A world-class terminal cannot compensate indefinitely for weaknesses elsewhere in the logistics chain. A vessel that turns around rapidly at Laldia gains little if containers are delayed by customs procedures, fragmented information systems, congested roads or inefficient inland movements. Bangladesh therefore has three years before the planned opening to modernise the ecosystem surrounding the terminal.
Rail connectivity deserves particular attention. Bangladesh is simultaneously moving towards a wider network of rail-based inland container facilities, with Dhirasram intended to increase container movement by rail between the Dhaka industrial region and Chattogram and other locations also being considered for inland logistics development. Yet the experience of Patenga Container Terminal illustrates the limitation of developing a modern maritime terminal without direct rail connectivity: containers destined for the inland rail network cannot move seamlessly between ship and rail at the terminal itself. Laldia should not inherit the same structural constraint.
This is not an issue for APM Terminals alone to solve. It requires coordination between Chattogram Port Authority and the Ministry of Shipping on one side, and Bangladesh Railway and the Ministry of Railways on the other. Before Laldia becomes operational, the government should determine how the terminal will connect physically and operationally with the emerging rail-ICD network, including Dhirasram and future inland logistics nodes. If Laldia succeeds in attracting larger vessels and concentrating greater volumes of containers at each call, relying predominantly on trucks to evacuate that additional cargo would simply transfer congestion from the waterside to the landside. A mainline maritime gateway needs a mainline inland corridor behind it.
Customs processes must become genuinely digital rather than merely computerised. Port, Customs, shipping lines, freight forwarders, ICDs and other actors need interoperable data exchange. An effective Port Community System should reduce repeated data submission and physical intervention.
Laldia should likewise be understood alongside, rather than in competition with, Bangladesh's other maritime investments. Its location and 6,000-TEU capability can address an immediate need for a higher-performance container gateway at Chattogram. Matarbari, with its deeper-water potential, belongs to the country's longer-term maritime architecture. The strategic task is to connect these maritime gateways with railways, inland terminals and industrial centres as parts of one national multimodal logistics network.
There is also a reason to avoid excessive celebration before construction begins. Bangladesh has often equated infrastructure announcements with economic transformation. Laldia should face a tougher test. APM Terminals says its performance commitments cover vessel turnaround, container dwell time, equipment availability, environmental compliance and customer satisfaction. Those outcomes-not simply completion of civil works-should receive public attention once the terminal begins operating.
Ultimately, however, an even bigger performance indicator exists: connectivity.
Does Laldia attract larger vessels? Does it reduce dependence on transshipment for suitable trade lanes? Do regular mainline services emerge? Does factory-to-store time fall? And do international buyers begin to see Bangladesh as a more reliable sourcing origin because its maritime gateway has improved?
For decades, Bangladesh has competed internationally by learning to produce goods more efficiently. The next stage of competitiveness will depend increasingly on moving those goods more efficiently.
When the foundation stone is laid at Laldia on August 30, Bangladesh will formally begin building a new container terminal. Whether it is also beginning the journey from feeder market to mainline gateway will be decided not by the ceremony, nor by the number of cranes eventually standing on the quay, but by the shipping networks that follow.
Ahamedul Karim Chowdhury, maritime, logistics and supply chain policy analyst | Former Head of ICD Kamalapur & Pangaon ICT.
[email protected]
