Chittagong Port Authority

autonomous · verified (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head: Rear Admiral S M Moniruzzaman
Role: Chairman
Annual budget: —
Staff: —
Established: 1976
Legal basis: Chittagong Port Authority Ordinance, 1976 (Ordinance No. LII of 1976); superseded in substance by the Chittagong Port Authority Act, 2022 (Act No. 08 of 2022), which modernised the governance framework and formalised the landlord-port model.

CPA is navigating a pivotal structural transition: the DP World-NCT concession is shelved for the duration of the interim government's tenure following a six-day dockworker strike (late January to early February 2026) that inflicted Tk 3,000 crore in estimated losses, but the landlord-port reform agenda continues via the April 2026 MGH private terminal deal at Patenga and the March 2026 Tk 61.96 billion Matarbari Deep Sea Port construction contract. Full-year 2025 container throughput reached a record 34.09 lakh TEUs (up from 32.75 lakh TEUs in 2024), and the first four months of FY2025-26 showed 10.15% year-on-year container growth.

Recent activity

2026-01-31 controversy NCT dockworker strike begins: workers and staff at Chattogram Port commenced an eight-hour daily work abstention on 31 January 2026, protesting the planned 15-year concession of the New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) to Dubai-based DP World; the Chattogram Bandar Rokkha Sangram Parishad and allied unions organised the action, framing the handover as a threat to national sovereignty over a strategic asset. ↗↗
2026-02-03 controversy NCT strike escalated to 24-hour total work abstention on 3 February 2026, halting all three terminals (NCT, GCB, and Patenga Container Terminal), suspending vessel movements from jetties to the outer anchorage; the six-day cumulative standoff inflicted economic losses estimated at Tk 3,000 crore, with export goods worth Tk 8,720 crore stranded and six ships departing with empty containers; BGMEA and BKMEA warned of severe RMG export disruption. ↗↗↗
2026-02-07 policy DP World pivot reversal confirmed: Shipping Adviser Brigadier General (retd) Dr M Sakhawat Hussain announced that no NCT concession agreement with DP World would be signed during the interim government's tenure, after DP World requested additional time to review the draft concession; BIDA chief Ashik Chowdhury corroborated the position; the strike was suspended for two days, then permanently paused pending formal cancellation; workers demanded full withdrawal rather than deferral. ↗↗↗
2026-02-10 reform CPA Sky (Port Single Window) launched: CPA Chairman Rear Admiral S M Moniruzzaman inaugurated the integrated digital platform at the CPA boardroom, unifying all port, customs, and export-import services under a single-sign-on (AIS 2.0) interface; the system integrates real-time ship tracking, streamlined clearance, and live monitoring; CPA projected a three-to-five-fold increase in operational efficiency. ↗↗
2026-03-12 procurement Matarbari Deep Sea Port construction contract signed: CPA Chairman Rear Admiral S M Moniruzzaman and Penta-Ocean Construction Co Ltd General Manager Tomokazu Hasegawa signed a Tk 61.96 billion contract at Le Meridien Dhaka for a Japanese JV (Penta-Ocean and TOA Corporation) to construct terminal infrastructure at Matarbari in Cox's Bazar; the revised total project cost stands at Tk 243.81 billion (up from Tk 177.77 billion); design capacity is 0.6-1.1 million TEUs initially, rising to 2.2-2.6 million TEUs by 2041. ↗↗↗
2026-04-20 policy MGH Group private terminal deal signed: CPA Chairman Rear Admiral S M Moniruzzaman and MGH Group CEO Anis Ahmed signed a 20-year land lease agreement at the CPA boardroom for Bangladesh's first-ever privately owned container terminal; Transmarine Logistics (MGH subsidiary) leases seven acres at Patenga at Tk 15 crore annual rent, will invest Tk 550 crore to construct a 250-metre jetty with 3,500 TEU static capacity and 40,000 TEU monthly throughput potential; the terminal advances CPA's landlord-port model and is designed as a zero-emission green port with fully electric container-handling equipment, solar road panels, and rooftop solar, targeting 2,700 tonnes of annual CO2 reduction. ↗↗↗↗

Provenance & notes

CPA was constituted under the Chittagong Port Authority Ordinance, 1976 (Ordinance No. LII of 1976) and its governance framework was subsequently updated by the Chittagong Port Authority Act, 2022 (Act No. 08 of 2022), which formally codified the landlord-port model under which CPA leases terminal land and berths to operators rather than running all operations directly. Rear Admiral S M Moniruzzaman (previously MD of Bangladesh Shipping Corporation) took charge as Chairman on 12 August 2024, confirmed by The Financial Express, TBS News, and Maritime Gateway from contemporaneous reporting. staff_count and annual_budget_bdt are left null: CPA's staff figure varies across sources (craft.co cites 359, which appears to be white-collar only; official sanctioned headcount not confirmed in a primary government document within the verification window) and CPA's own budget is embedded within Ministry of Shipping allocations without a separately published CPA budget line in publicly accessible FY2025-26 documents. These fields should be populated from CPA's official annual report when available. The user-specified date of 'May 9' for the MGH private terminal deal is inconsistent with reporting from The Daily Star, TBS News, BSS, and The Financial Express, all of which place the signing on 20 April 2026 at the CPA boardroom in Chattogram; the April 20 date is used here. Record verified against 2+ independent primary sources for all six notable events.

Chittagong Port Authority

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