A false binary at the heart of the Chattogram port debate

The debate surrounding the management of the Chattogram port's New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) is one of the most consequential ones in our current national discourse. On one side, we have the sovereignty brigade, arguing that leasing critical national infrastructure to a foreign state-owned enterprise poses unacceptable risks to national security, strategic autonomy, and economic independence, not to mention the nation's pride and dignity. On the other, we have the efficiency technocrats, including interim government officials and international financial advisers, contending that this arrangement is critical to overcoming domestic inefficiency and corruption, attracting vital foreign direct investment, and elevating the port to global standards.

There is no denying that Chattogram port is congested, slow, and uncompetitive, imposing a direct cost on the economy. The problem is: neither of these factions is addressing the real problem. Speak to exporters, freight forwarders, or logistics managers, and a consistent picture would emerge: that containers do not sit idle because the port cannot unload them, but rather because clearance is slow, discretionary, and frequently opaque. The bottleneck is not port operations; it is the Customs clearance process under the National Board of Revenue (NBR).

And so, at the risk of stating the obvious, let me put out my argument plainly. The debate surrounding NCT is fundamentally flawed. It is not a simple binary choice between inefficient public management and efficient private operation. At the heart of the matter lies the crippling bureaucratic dysfunction of Customs, which is separate from port operations. We need not rely on hypotheticals to make this point clearer. We already have a live comparison between a disciplined state operator and a foreign private operator inside the port—and the results are telling.

The Navy-run Chittagong Dry Dock Limited (CDDL) has, over the past year, delivered record performance at the port: achieving over 122,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in a single month (August 2025), improving berth productivity, and reducing ship turnaround time to around two days. Its management approach has been characterised by clear lines of authority, predictable operational discipline, and an absence of discretionary interference. In other words, when given operational autonomy, a state-owned operator has demonstrated that high performance is not only possible; it is already happening.

By contrast, the foreign-operated Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT) has struggled to meet expectations. The promised equipment has been delayed, throughput has remained modest, and operations have been repeatedly hampered by the absence of a working Customs scanner, an issue entirely outside the operator's control.

The lesson from this comparison is not that foreign operators are incapable. It is that no operator, foreign or domestic, can perform effectively if Customs systems, clearance infrastructure, and decision-making remain opaque and unintegrated. The bottleneck is systemic, not managerial.

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DP World's proposal for NCT seems to reflect a clear understanding of this reality. While meeting with Chief Adviser Prof Muhammad Yunus in Davos in late January, DP World's CEO stated that the company wanted to invest in NCT to "reduce congestion" and "increase efficiency," but specifically proposed to "introduce a digital online Customs system" to "reduce corruption." This proposal moves beyond simple port operations and offers a technological, private-sector solution to the very NBR-driven paralysis that is inherent in our system.

So, if this debate of sovereignty vs privatised efficiency is a false binary, what is the third alternative? The "gold standard" for an efficient, state-led port management model is the Port of Singapore, where the answer was not privatisation, but corporatisation.

In 1996, Singapore separated the Port of Singapore Authority's regulatory and commercial roles, creating the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) as a regulator and corporatising port operations under PSA Corporation Ltd, which remains state-owned. PSA was structured to operate as a competitive, efficiency-driven enterprise, supported by business-centric IT investment, alignment between technology and strategy, flexible infrastructure, and a culture of innovation. This approach produced PORTNET, a logistics platform that became central to port efficiency. Singapore now handles over 41 million TEUs annually, and PSA has grown into a leading global terminal operator competing with the largest private firms.

This model demonstrates that state ownership can coexist with world-class commercial performance. The numbers produced by our Navy-run CDDL suggest that this strategy could be viable for us, and merits exploration at the very least. The irony here is that for a regime mandated with bringing state reform, the incumbents seem to be actively eschewing reform and targeting quick fixes. This approach is fraught with risk.

The current proposal to lease NCT to DP World is already facing predictable complications. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is simultaneously advising the government on the concession while having recommended substantial tariff increases that make the port more financially attractive to foreign operators, an arrangement that raises conflict-of-interest concerns. Meanwhile, pursuing the lease through a government-to-government process rather than an open tender echoes the same procedural flaws that had led the Supreme Court to strike down a Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) bid for Patenga container terminal management as "arbitrary." Legal challenges have already begun.

This is not about ideology or foreign involvement. Bangladesh has welcomed foreign investment across sectors and should continue to do so. But a decision of this magnitude, affecting the country's principal trade artery, must be grounded in a clear diagnosis and a sustainable institutional design, not based on pressure to demonstrate quick wins. Bangladesh needs a port system that supports export growth, reduces cost of trade, and competes with regional peers. That requires Customs modernisation, digital integration, and operational autonomy. Simply changing the operator addresses none of this.

So, in my view, the path forward is neither to outsource control nor to continue protecting inefficiency. It is to restructure and modernise the port system from within, learning from a model that has proven successful in precisely the context we now face. If we choose the right reforms, NCT can become a catalyst for competitiveness rather than a symbol of contested sovereignty.

Saba El Kabir is a development practitioner and founder of Cultivera Limited. He can be reached at saba@cultivera.net.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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