Matarbari Deep Sea Port: Opportunities, Challenges & Economic Benefits
Bangladesh has spent decades operating without a true deep-sea commercial port. Chattogram Port handles almost all of the country's container trade, but its shallow channel means the largest international container vessels cannot berth directly. Cargo often has to move through feeder vessels connected to regional transshipment hubs.
Matarbari can change that structure. As of October 2025, construction of Bangladesh's first deep-sea commercial port has formally started, with the first phase now targeted for completion around 2029. The opportunity is much bigger than simply adding another seaport: Matarbari could give Bangladesh direct access to larger vessels, create new port capacity and eventually connect the country more deeply with regional supply chains.
Bangladesh Needs More Deep-Water Port Capacity
Chattogram Port remains the backbone of Bangladesh's maritime trade. It handles around 92% of the country's seaborne import-export cargo and about 98% of containerised trade.
The pressure is still increasing. In FY2024–25, Chattogram handled a record 3.296 million TEUs, around 4% more than the previous financial year. The port therefore continues growing even before new facilities such as Matarbari and Bay Terminal become fully operational.
Matarbari offers something Chattogram cannot easily provide: significantly deeper water. The new port is designed to receive vessels of around 8,000–8,200 TEU capacity, with ships drawing roughly 14.5 metres able to use the terminal. JICA's original design also included a 350-metre-wide navigation channel and facilities for large bulk and general-cargo ships.
That could reduce Bangladesh's dependence on smaller feeder vessels and foreign transshipment ports. Larger ships calling directly at Bangladesh would not eliminate transshipment completely, but they could reduce additional handling, sailing and waiting costs for selected trade routes.
The Power Plant Accidentally Created the Foundation for the Port
Matarbari's biggest advantage is that Bangladesh did not have to start a deep-sea harbour completely from zero.
The 1,200 MW Matarbari coal-fired power plant required a harbour capable of receiving large coal carriers. Under the power project, engineers dredged a roughly 14-kilometre navigation channel, developed breakwaters, reclaimed land and constructed marine facilities. The 2017 marine works alone involved around 21.7 million cubic metres of dredging.
Your old article correctly identified this basic connection: once Bangladesh was already digging a deep channel for coal ships, the same location became an obvious candidate for a commercial deep-sea port.
JICA's later port study reached essentially the same conclusion. Rather than creating another completely separate harbour, it recommended expanding and reusing the coal-port infrastructure because that offered lower initial investment and avoided maintaining two separate navigation channels.
Bangladesh Actually Did Integrate Part of the Future Port Early
There is an important detail here. The original power-plant plan envisaged a much smaller channel of roughly 3 km, 250 metres wide and 15 metres deep.
The design was later expanded to roughly 14.3 km, 350 metres and 18.5 metres, partly so the infrastructure could support future deep-sea-port development. This change added about Tk14,327 crore to the broader power project according to the revised proposal reported in 2021.
So it would be wrong to say Bangladesh completely ignored the future commercial port. A substantial portion of today's deep-water access was deliberately incorporated into the power project.
The missed opportunity is more specific: the commercial terminal, basin, additional dredging, yards and supporting infrastructure were not completed at the same time as the large marine construction campaign.
What Could Bangladesh Have Saved by Building Both Together?
The comparison is revealing.
The 2025 port-construction contract alone is approximately JPY73.4 billion, or around Tk6,200 crore, and includes another 7.2 million cubic metres of dredging, 36 hectares of reclamation, soil improvement, pavement, buildings and the 760-metre terminal.
JICA had already warned during the preparatory stage that starting commercial-port dredging earlier and coordinating it with the power project would have schedule and construction advantages. Its study explicitly recommended considering moving part of the port dredging into the power-project scope.
The clearest financial comparison is the total project budget. Matarbari Port was initially approved at around Tk17,777 crore, but by October 2024 its revised cost had reached Tk24,381 crore—an increase of about Tk6,604 crore or 37%. Exchange-rate depreciation, additional land acquisition and design changes were among the reasons.
It would be inaccurate to claim that Bangladesh could definitely have saved the entire Tk6,604 crore by constructing the port earlier. Some land, terminal and design expenses would still have existed. However, starting the commercial port alongside the power-plant marine works could have reduced exposure to later price escalation, repeated mobilisation, additional dredging campaigns and years of delay.
Matarbari Could Become More Than a Bangladeshi Port
The economic opportunity extends beyond domestic cargo. A March 2025 policy study argued that Matarbari could support industrial and logistics links connecting Bangladesh with Northeast India, Bhutan and Nepal if the necessary multimodal connections and trade agreements develop.
That opportunity should not be treated as guaranteed traffic. Regional cargo will only come if Matarbari offers competitive tariffs, efficient customs processing and reliable road, rail and inland connections.
For Bangladesh itself, the immediate benefits are clearer:
more capacity for future container growth;
direct calls by significantly larger ships;
lower dependence on regional transshipment;
additional bulk and general-cargo capacity;
support for industries around Maheshkhali and Matarbari;
potential foreign investment around a deep-water logistics hub.
The port can therefore create value even if regional transshipment develops more slowly than expected.
Connectivity May Decide Whether the Port Succeeds
A deep harbour alone does not create an efficient logistics system. Containers arriving at Matarbari still need to reach factories, warehouses and consumers across Bangladesh.
Road connectivity is still under development. In July 2025, the government was tendering construction of the Matarbari Port Access Road's western section and the north-south connector, with a planned construction period of 42 months.
Rail connectivity will eventually matter just as much. If most containers move from Matarbari by truck and then join the already heavily used Chattogram–Dhaka corridor, part of the congestion problem will simply move from the port gate to the highway.
Bangladesh therefore needs to treat Matarbari as a logistics system, not simply a marine construction project.
The Opportunity Is Still Bigger Than the Mistake
Matarbari demonstrates both good infrastructure reuse and weak project timing. Building the coal port created expensive marine infrastructure that now makes Bangladesh's first deep-sea commercial port much more achievable.
But the commercial-port opportunity was identified years ago, while the actual construction contract was only signed in April 2025. The project that once targeted the middle of the decade is now expected around 2029, and its estimated cost has risen to roughly Tk24,381 crore.
That delay does not remove Matarbari's economic value. Bangladesh still needs deeper port capacity, Chattogram's container traffic continues to grow and Matarbari can accommodate vessels that existing terminals cannot.
The larger lesson is about timing. When Bangladesh was already spending heavily to create deep-water access for the Matarbari power plant, completing more of the commercial-port infrastructure at the same time could have reduced duplication, escalation risk and years of lost opportunity.
Matarbari can still become one of Bangladesh's most important infrastructure assets. Its success will depend on whether the country now completes the port, road, rail and industrial connections as one coordinated system instead of treating them as separate projects.
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