Bangladesh: Payra seaport ready to unload first cargo

Bangladesh's Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, is expected to inaugurate the first deep-sea port in Patuakhali, about 320km southwest of Dhaka, through a video conference tomorrow. Payra seaport will start operations on a limited scale by first unloading cargo from a vessel arriving from China, but the port will not be fully operational until 2023.

The trial operations of the port started early this month when a vessel from China reached moored off the port. The MV Fortune Bird is waiting at the outer anchorage with 53,000t of crushed black stones to be used in the Padma bridge project, reports The Daily Star.

The PPA aims to facilitate berthing of ships carrying clinker, fertiliser and other bulk commodities at outer anchorage and transportation of the cargos through lighter vessels by this year. The government plans to build the Payra seaport under a public-private partnership on 6000 acres on the west bank of Rabnabad channel. The channel will allow up to 250m vessels to come through.

The much-talked-about seaport is set to come into operation three years after the government declared building the infrastructure to facilitate entry of big ships that cannot anchor at Chittagong and Mongla ports.