Bangladesh bags $20m orders

Ananda Shipyard and Slipways in Bangladesh has received orders worth $ 20 million to build two small vessels and a tug from Middle East countries at the region’s biggest shipbuilding fair in Dubai.

“We have received orders worth $11 million from Iraq to build two crew supply vessels and $9 million from Iran to build a tugboat,” said Abdullahel Bari, the chairman and the managing director of Ananda, the country’s largest ocean-going ship building company.

The two vessels weighing 100 tonnes each will be delivered to Iraq by June, 2010 and a tug to Iran by March, 2010, he added. With the latest orders, Ananda’s total ‘confirmed’ export orders have now reached $400 million.

The country has become a new destination for construction of small sea-going vessels which have an annual market of $400 billion, as traditional shipbuilding nations such as South Korea, Japan and China now focus on large vessels. Even Vietnam, which is relatively new to shipbuilding, is no longer interested in building ships weighing less than 25,000 tonnes.