Western Marine to build country's largest fishing trawler

CHATTOGRAM, Jan 13: Western Marine Shipyard is going to build the largest fishing trawler in Bangladesh for Pacific Eagle Ltd, a concern of renowned JK Group based in Chattogram.

The WMShL signed a contract with the Pacific Eagle Ltd on Saturday in the city. Managing Director of the WMShL Sakhawat Hossain and Chairman of Pacific Eagle Ltd Jahangir Alam Khan signed the contract.

The hi-tech fishing trawler will be 47 meters in length and 11 meters in breadth with 350 metric tons of fish carrying capacity. The vessel will be hazard compliant which is an international requirement in fishing vessels for exporting fish.

Western Marine has so far built 13 fishing trawlers; four among them were built for JK Group earlier. The group is pleased with the quality of the previous four vessels for which Western Marine secured order for another fishing trawler.

Western Marine is currently constructing an 80-meter long fishing trawler for Norway at its yard at Kulgaon, Patiya of the district. This will be the largest fishing vessel of Norway and the first fishing vessel to be exported from Bangladesh.

Sakhawat Hossain said the vessel under the latest contract will be fishing in the deep sea of our blue economy zone. The blue economy zone remains unexplored as it requires more hi-tech fishing trawlers for extraction. If we have hi-tech fishing trawlers our fishing industry will make better contribution to the national economy similar to Norway. Fishing is one of the main sources of revenue in Norway, he said.

To become a middle income country by 2021 and expand sustainable growth by 2030 we need a lot of different types of vessels, such as dredger, tug, passenger vessel etc, he stated adding there will also be huge level of heavy steel works for bridge construction, dredging and mass water transport. To execute the future development works the nation needs favourable government policy to obtain working capital from banks against work orders.

Western Marine Chairman Saiful Islam informed that the country's ship building industry is growing fast and has proven its capacity to build all kinds of vessels for domestic use.

The sector was affected from Euro Zone crisis in 2012. To ensure sustainability of the industry in the competitive international market he asked for the government support for undertaking a re-financing scheme for the sector through long term loan at the lowest interest, which will also help create job opportunity for thousands of people.

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