Work on a new container terminal at Mongla Port is set to begin on Thursday, 5 November, when Prime Minister Tarique Rahman lays its foundation stone during his second visit to the port since taking office.
Mongla Port Authority chairman Rear Admiral Arif Ahmed Mostafa said the prime minister is expected at the port at 10am, and that construction will formally start with the ceremony. The prime minister last visited Mongla and the Sundarbans on 22 October.
What will be built
- Two new container jetties forming a 368-metre terminal, with a new container yard behind it.
- 49 pieces of handling equipment for the yard.
- A dangerous-cargo handling facility.
- Speed: more than 30 container moves an hour once the terminal is running.
Port officials say the project will give Mongla the capacity to handle around 400,000 TEU a year, a major step up for the country’s second-largest seaport, which has long sat in Chattogram’s shadow.
Rail link on the table
On the same day, a memorandum of understanding is expected to be signed at the port’s Jetty No. 9 between the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) and China Railway Construction Corporation.
Sheikh Faridul Islam, the local MP for Bagerhat-3 and state minister for environment, forest and climate change, said the deal would open the way to connecting Mongla Port with the railway, so that cargo from inland container depots could move by train to the port’s jetties and onto ships.
After the port programme, the prime minister is scheduled to travel by road to Bagerhat and then on to Khulna.
Translated and rewritten from reporting by Banglanews24 (Bangla), 4 November 2026.
Photo: Representative image: a ship at Mongla Port (2017). Abdullah Al Noman / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
