Saudi firm interested to transform Matarbari into regional mega port

Davos, 24 Jan  - Red Sea Gateway Terminal, a Saudi-owned company, on Friday expressed its interest to help transform the deep-sea port of Matarbari in Bangladesh into one of the largest ports in the region.

The world-class terminal provider expressed its interest in managing the deep-sea port of Matarbari.

Aamer A. Alireza, the executive chairman of the company, made the comments when he called on Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in the Swiss mountain city of Davos.

The Chief Adviser asked the company to invest more in Bangladesh and help attract more foreign direct investment to the country, Chief Adviser's Deputy Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad Majumder told UNB.

He said Bangladesh would develop more ports along the Bay of Bengal to turn the Chittagong region into an export and shipping hub for countries in the region.

The Red Sea Gateway, which manages Patenga Terminal, has planned to invest nearly 200 million dollars to boost the efficiency and capacity of the terminal, Alireza said.

He said the company has ordered an import of 25 million dollars of container handling cranes and other equipment from China recently and would order another 25 million dollars’ worth of equipment in the next few weeks.

"These are hybrid equipment, meaning they can be run by both electricity and fuels. They will cut emissions," he said.

Describing Matarbari as one of the most important deep-sea ports in the region, Alireza said his company is interested in investing in the port and turning it into one of the major shipping hubs in the region.

He said port efficiency in Chattogram will woo huge foreign direct investment in the country as many top manufacturers will be keen to relocate their factories in the country.

Lamiya Morshed, the SDG coordinator of the Bangladesh government, and Tareq Ariful Islam, Dhaka's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, also attended the meeting.