CHITTAGONG, June 6: Western Marine Shipyard has won a new shipbuilding contract with Gambia Groundnut Corporation (GGC), a state-run organisation in Gambia, to build a 350 BHP tugboat and 10 dummy barges of 200 tonnes each.
The new building project is to be completed within a year. Western Marine has entered the West African market through this contract.
These barges and tugboat will be used to transport groundnuts through Gambian river channels. Gambia is known as one of the leading producers and exporters of groundnut in the world.
These barges and tugboat will add value to their production. The project will be implemented at a cost of US$ 2.65 million equivalent to approximately Tk 210 million.
Earlier, Western Marine got new shipbuilding orders from East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Currently, Western Marine is engaged in building vessels for India, New Zealand, Kenya, Uganda and Gambia apart from the local market.
Chairman of Western Marine Shipyard Md Saiful Islam said this new order from West Africa would help create more new building opportunities from that region by this year.
Managing Director of Western Marine Shipyard Md Sakhawat Hossain said they can bag more export orders thanks to other competitive advantages if the cost of fund or bank interest becomes single-digit.
High cost of fund is their main challenge to compete with other countries like South Africa, China and India as their cost of fund is only 3-5 per cent, he said and urged the government to bring down the cost of fund to single-digit.
He also expressed the hope that then they can grab more orders and about 50 new shipyards will grow very soon.
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Western Marine enters West African market
Our Correspondent | Published: June 07, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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