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Local firm to build 10 ships for Japan

Jasim Uddin Khan
Highspeed Shipbuilding & Engineering Co, a local shipbuilder, has won a US$50 million order from Japan to build ten small ships, further evidence of the country’s boom-ingshipbuildingindustry.
This is the first time the country has won a Japanese contract and underlines the increasing global acceptance of Bangladesh as an emerging shipbuilding nation.
The buyer is Japan based Tokyo Freighting Ltd, a shipping company. The agreement was signed on Wednesday in Dhaka.
"Since the Japanese firm is very conscious about standards and compliance, Tokyo Freighting experts will constantly supervise the overall manufacturing of these ships,” said KM Mahmudur Rahman, managing director of Highspeed Shipbuilding & Engineering, who signed the deal with Shigeki Date, managing director ofTokyo Freighting.
As per the agreement Tokyo Freighting Ltd will also provide technical support to Highspeed in developing its Narayanganj dockyard, in line with Japanese standards.
Highspeed, which is to invest around USS 5 million in the coming months to upgrade the manufacturing facility of its dockyard, will supply the ships byOctober2010.
Shigeki Date, managing director ofTokyo Freighting Ltd, along with Executive Director Yoshiteru Ikeda visited Highspeed dockyard recently and expressed their satisfaction, as it is well equipped with modern machinery.
Manufacturing of the first four ships will start by December this year and will be
delivered to Tokyo Freighting by March next year.
The size of the ships, includ ing dry cargo carriers and oil tankers, will vary from 2,000 tonnes to 4,000 tonnes. The Japanese company will supply all raw materials and other equipment.
Rahman said Japanese manu-facturers are currently outsourcing small ships, as it is not cost effective now to manufacture them at huge dockyards.
"It is a great development for the country's shipbuilding industry as Japan, the most advanced shipbuilding nation in the world, starts building in Bangladesh. It may inspire other advanced shipbuilding nations to come to Bangladesh,” Rahman hoped.
Currently local shipbuilders including Ananda Shipyard and Western Marine Shipyard are working on about USS 400 million worth of orders for over 40 vessels for buyers from Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and Mozambique.
The success of these two companies have encouraged other local companies such as Meghna Group of Industries, Rangs Group, Khan Brothers and Narayanganj Engineering & Shipbuilding to jump on the bandwagon of global shipbuildingmarket.
Behind the current boom of the industry' is the global rise in the demand for new ships, especially smaller ones with a capacity below 15,000 dead weight tonnes (DWT). This has helped Bangladesh attract the attention of international shipping companies as traditional shipbuilding countries such as Japan, China, South Korea and Vietnam are not interested in building ships with under 20,000 DWT.
jasim@thedailystar.net