A determined group of Bangladeshi senior bureaucrats across several ministries has thwarted the Mohammad Yunus-led interim regime’s bid to hand over development and operations of Chittagong Port’s New Mooring Container Terminal (NMCT), well-placed government sources have revealed to Northeast News.
Amid domestic political opposition, Dubai-based multinational logistics giant DP World was considered by the Yunus-led regime to operate the Chittagong NMCT and work was set to begin this month. Allowing foreign companies, including DP World, to build and operate Bangladesh’s several port terminals in Chittagong was an in-principle decision of the Yunus regime ever since it took charge in August 2024.
In July 2025, senior advisers in the Yunus-led establishment first took the stand that the NMCT would be operated by Bangladeshi companies for six months before handing over all functions to D P World. At that time, the Advisory Council Committee on Economic Affairs approved this move following the expiration of a 17-year contract between Chittagong Port Authority and Saif Powertec Ltd, a local player.
In line with this decision, the Bangladesh Navy was assigned to manage operations at the NMCT along with the CPA, for a period of six months. The NMCT is the largest of its kind in Bangladesh with handling container loading and unloading besides other operations.
DP World’s Group Chairman and CEO, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, visited Dhaka in April 2025 (and previously in January 2025) for high-level discussions with Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus, centred around major investments in Chittagong Port’s container terminals, logistics and infrastructure.
Even as the process to award the NMCT to DP World was taken during the tenure of the erstwhile Awami League government, the Yunus-led regime sought to expeditiously hand over all operations at the terminal to the Dubai-based logistics major, in which a significant American stake is involved. A World Bank affiliate, International Financial Corporation, was picked by the Bangladesh government as the adviser.
While the Yunus regime’s stated objective was to invite prime-port investments, essentially three key international players, DP World, Singapore-based PSA and APM Terminal, a subsidiary of the Danish giant AP Moller Maersk, emerged as frontrunners for widespread development of different Chittagong port terminals, including the NMCT and the Bay Terminal.
With the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the Jamaat-e-Islami, a few Left parties and workers unions mounting opposition to the handing over of operations at the NMCT to DP World, the Shipping Ministry was caught in a quandary.
This led Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus to intervene to depute two other officials, his Special Envoy for International Affairs Lutfey Siddiqi and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) Chairman Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun to intervene and “speed-up” the process of handing over NMCT operations to DP World. “This move undermined Shipping Adviser Brigadier (retd) Sakhawat Hossein,” a Bangladesh government source said.
But the opposition by political parties and trade unions aside, significant barriers came up in the form of bureaucratic red tape and “sluggish movement of files” across all the other key ministries, including finance, shipping and foreign affairs.
Sometime in July, Sakhawat is said to have met with DP World executives in Singapore where he had also urged that country’s Transport Minister Jeffrey Siow to invest in port infrastructure development, including Bangladesh’s shipping industry. Sources said Sakhawat urged the DP World executives to complete the company’s entry to begin NCMT’s operations by November 15.
While Sakhawat discussed the viability of investment opportunities with Siow on November 12, 2025, he yet again sought investment in port infrastructure development and the shipping industry.
He likely met DP World executives in Dubai during a visit there to take part in the two-day ‘World Maritime Day Parallel Event-2025’ on September 30, 2025.
