For years the idea of Bangladesh having its own deep-sea port has felt a little like a national daydream—real enough to talk about, but always just beyond reach. Today, that dream is slowly taking shape on the shores of Matarbari in Cox’s Bazar. Built in partnership with Japan, the Matarbari Deep-Sea Port may one day redefine the country’s relationship with the sea. Yet it also tells a larger story about ambition, rivalry, and the uneasy balance between geography and geopolitics.
Why Matarbari Deep-Sea Port Matters
Bangladesh’s existing ports—Chittagong, Mongla, and Payra—serve most of the country’s trade but share a critical limitation: none can accommodate deep-draft vessels. Large container ships must dock in Colombo or Singapore, unload, and transfer goods onto smaller vessels bound for Chittagong. It’s an arrangement that drains both time and pride. Each trans-shipment adds cost, dependency, and delay. A port capable of hosting mother vessels would change that equation—allowing Bangladesh to stand on its own maritime feet and, potentially, to serve its landlocked neighbours as well.
The government led by Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus recently pushed the completion date to December 2029, with commercial operations expected in 2030. The budget has swollen by Tk 65.73 billion, roughly 37 percent higher than the original Tk 177 billion estimate approved during the Awami League years. Japan’s development arm, JICA, has agreed to cover the escalation through additional soft loans—ensuring the project keeps its Japanese anchor even as costs drift upward.
If it succeeds, Matarbari will become Bangladesh’s first facility capable of docking ships with a 16-metre draft. That would instantly shave roughly 15 percent off transport costs and attract regional cargo from Nepal, Bhutan, and India’s north-east, as well as parts of southern China and Myanmar. In other words, the port’s value lies not only in tonnage and tariffs but in the geopolitical web it will inevitably draw Bangladesh into.
The First Attempt: Sonadia’s Rise and Fall
The search for a deep-sea site dates back two decades. In 2004, the BNP-led four-party alliance commissioned feasibility studies through Pacific Consultants International (PCI), a Japanese firm. By 2007, the Shipping Ministry and PCI had zeroed in on Sonadia Island, a nine-square-kilometre stretch off Cox’s Bazar, as the most promising location.
When Sheikh Hasina visited Beijing in 2014, China Harbour Engineering Company, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Communications Construction Company (and builder of Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port), offered an enticing proposal—financing, engineering, and quick delivery. It appeared Dhaka had found its benefactor.
But geopolitics, as ever, had other plans. Western diplomats and Indian officials quietly warned that a Chinese-run port barely 200 kilometres from India’s Andaman Islands could tilt the Bay of Bengal’s security balance. By the time President Xi Jinping arrived in Dhaka in 2016, expectations for a grand announcement were high. None came.
Finally, in August 2020, the Hasina cabinet formally cancelled the Sonadia project. Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam cited environmental damage and biodiversity risks. That explanation was scientifically plausible—Sonadia’s mangroves and marine ecosystem are fragile—but many suspected strategic pressure from India, Japan, and the United States played a decisive role. China’s so-called “string of pearls” across the Indian Ocean had already made regional capitals uneasy, and Sonadia was beginning to look like another bead in the necklace.
Payra: An Expensive Detour
After Sonadia’s demise, attention shifted westward to Payra Port in Patuakhali. The project promised a fresh start, free of diplomatic baggage. Heavy investment followed, and optimism ran high. Yet almost immediately engineers encountered the unforgiving mathematics of silt and depth. Maintaining a 70-kilometre dredged channel year after year proved ruinously expensive. Each monsoon erased months of work.
By the late 2010s, officials began admitting—quietly—that Payra would never achieve true deep-sea capacity. It could handle medium-draft ships, yes, but not the largest classes that define global trade. What began as a workaround was turning into a warning: unless Bangladesh chose its geography carefully, the sea would keep reclaiming its promises.
The Return to Cox’s Bazar
That realisation pushed policymakers back east, to Matarbari, just 25 kilometres from the old Sonadia site. There already stood the 1,200-megawatt coal-fired power plant, a joint Bangladesh–Japan project approved in 2014. Its infrastructure—access roads, transmission corridors, and a nascent channel for coal imports—offered a foundation for something bigger.
In March 2020, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the transformation of Matarbari into a deep-sea port, naming the Chittagong Port Authority as implementing agency. The estimated cost stood at Tk 177.77 billion, of which JICA would supply Tk 128.93 billion, leaving Tk 48.84 billion to be borne by the government and CPA combined.
According to Planning Commission sources cited in Prothom Alo, converting Matarbari from a coal terminal into a multi-purpose port required sweeping redesigns. The channel’s length grew from 3 km to 14.3 km, its width from 250 m to 350 m, and its depth from 15 m to 18.5 m. The number of jetties rose from two to eight. Studies by Japan’s Koei, Germany’s Pichner, Japan’s TEPSCO, and Australia’s SMEC informed the final blueprint.
For once, the stars seemed aligned: financing from Japan, political will from Dhaka, and an existing industrial footprint already carved into the coast.
MIDI: Building More Than a Port
The Matarbari project is now the anchor of the Moheshkhali and Matarbari Integrated Infrastructure Development Initiative (MIDI) — a Japan-Bangladesh partnership that aspires to create an entire industrial corridor on the southeastern coast. It links port development with highways, energy grids, and logistics hubs, knitting together a region that once felt cut off from the rest of the country.
On 29 March 2023, the Government of Bangladesh and JICA signed loan agreements in Dhaka for three flagship projects:
1. The Matarbari Port Development Project (II),
2. The Chattogram–Cox’s Bazar Highway Improvement Project (I), and
3. The Dual Gauge Double Line between Joydebpur and Ishurdi (E/S).
Together they amount to 165.319 billion yen, or roughly Tk 13,000 crore, under Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) framework. The upgraded highway will ensure a smooth, high-speed route from Chattogram to Matarbari — a lifeline for future cargo traffic.
What Makes Matarbari Deep-Sea Port Different
Unlike the earlier experiments at Sonadia or Payra, Matarbari already has the foundations of a port city. The nearby coal-fired power plant, though controversial, brought dredged channels, transmission lines, and skilled labour to an area that had little of either. Now those same facilities are being repurposed for trade.
When completed, Matarbari Port will be the first in Bangladesh capable of hosting deep-draft ships. Modelled after Japan’s Kashima and Niigata ports, it will include two terminals — one 300 metres long and another 460 metres — with the possibility of expansion as traffic grows. The revised cost stands at Tk 243.81 billion. Officials say the design depth of 18.5 metres will allow vessels carrying over 8,000 TEUs to dock directly, eliminating the need for trans-shipment through Sri Lanka or Singapore.
The project is not merely an engineering feat; it’s a test of coordination across institutions. Port authorities, energy planners, and environmental regulators must all operate in sync — something that has rarely happened in Bangladesh’s development history. Still, JICA’s involvement provides a structure of accountability and an insistence on environmental safeguards that earlier projects often lacked.
The Geography of Opportunity
Matarbari’s significance cannot be measured only in nautical charts or shipping schedules. It sits astride the Bay of Bengal, through which roughly a quarter of the world’s traded goods pass — including vast shipments of Persian Gulf oil and liquefied natural gas bound for East Asia. Whoever manages an efficient port here gains not only economic leverage but also strategic visibility over one of the planet’s busiest sea lanes.
The Bay itself hides wealth — untapped gas fields, mineral deposits, and fishing grounds — that has drawn growing interest from major powers. For Japan and India, the region is a frontier of supply-chain resilience; for China, it is an extension of the maritime Silk Road; and for the United States, it is a strategic link in its Indo-Pacific network. Bangladesh, without fully intending to, has found itself at the confluence of these ambitions.
Bangladesh’s Stakes
At present, Bangladesh’s ports handle imports and exports worth around USD 60 billion a year. According to the Chattogram Port Authority (CPA), vessel arrivals are increasing by more than 11 percent annually, but the Karnaphuli River channel that leads to the docks is too shallow for ships longer than 190 metres or deeper than 9.5 metres. Large vessels are forced to wait offshore, unload onto smaller carriers, and lose days in the process.
If Matarbari succeeds in accepting 16-metre-draft ships, freight costs could drop dramatically, and the time-savings alone might raise national GDP growth by two percentage points. Economists see knock-on effects: new industrial clusters, warehousing, and road networks spreading through Cox’s Bazar, creating thousands of jobs and attracting investment from manufacturers who have so far looked elsewhere.
Japan’s Calculated Commitment
Japan’s relationship with Bangladesh runs deep. Since independence, Tokyo has been one of Dhaka’s most reliable development partners — funding bridges, highways, and power plants. Yet Matarbari is different. It aligns squarely with Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision, announced by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in New Delhi in March 2023, where he called India an “indispensable partner.”
Under the new FOIP strategy, Japan aims to use its development aid not only for economic growth but also for maritime security, coast-guard support, and strategic connectivity in the Indo-Pacific. In this framework, Matarbari is more than a port — it is a node in a political map.
The port also fits within the BIG-B initiative (Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt) launched during the 2014 Bangladesh-Japan Summit. According to Professor Tetsuo Kotani of Meikai University, Japan’s involvement is driven by the need for stability in the routes that carry oil from the Middle East to Japan’s refineries. In a comment to Nikkei Asia, he described Japan’s effort as a form of “defensive diversification” — an attempt to keep the Bay of Bengal open and friendly amid China’s expanding maritime reach.
Over the past decade, Japan has moved from its traditional pacifism toward a more assertive role as a member of the Quad alliance with the United States, India, and Australia. For Tokyo, Matarbari is both a practical investment and a symbolic foothold in South Asia’s geopolitical theatre.
The Shadow of China
No discussion of Matarbari is complete without the shadow cast by China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing’s involvement in Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and Kyaukphyu Port in Myanmar has already reshaped regional calculations. Sonadia’s cancellation in 2020 was widely read as a setback for China’s ambitions in the Bay. Now, Japan’s rising role at Matarbari looks — at least to Western and Indian analysts — like a quiet victory in the great-power tug-of-war.
Still, Dhaka’s policymakers tend to resist such binaries. Bangladesh remains a partner in China’s infrastructure network, receiving loans and investment in energy and transport. Officials insist that Matarbari will serve all regional actors on equal terms. Yet the balance is delicate: a project financed and designed by Japan, located at a choke-point of global trade, cannot easily stay outside the orbit of power politics.
India’s Position: Between Access and Anxiety
For India, the Matarbari port offers both opportunity and unease. The opportunity lies in connectivity. India’s North-Eastern states, long isolated by mountains and borders, could finally gain reliable sea access through Bangladesh. Chattogram Port already sits only 70 kilometres from Sabroom in Tripura; once transit routes are streamlined, goods could move from Agartala to the world market in days rather than weeks.
But anxiety persists. With the Awami League — New Delhi’s most dependable ally — no longer in power, Indian officials worry about the continuity of existing agreements. Still, the sheer logic of geography suggests cooperation will endure. India needs outlets for its northeastern trade; Bangladesh needs users for its new port. Matarbari may yet become the meeting point of those pragmatic interests.
What Lies Ahead
The port’s completion is slated for December 2029, with commercial operations by 2030 — an ambitious timeline given Bangladesh’s record of delays. Yet optimism persists, perhaps because this project is not just about cargo. It embodies a shift in how Bangladesh sees itself: from a riverine nation enclosed by borders to a maritime nation open to the world.
If managed well, Matarbari could turn the Bay of Bengal into Bangladesh’s new frontier — a space not of vulnerability but of connection. It could also redefine regional logistics, drawing Nepalese timber, Bhutanese minerals, and Indian tea into its export channels. But if mismanaged, it risks becoming another costly monument to unfulfilled ambition, swallowed by silt and politics.
Either way, Matarbari stands as proof that infrastructure is never only concrete and steel. It is also diplomacy, ecology, and imagination. The waves that lap against its unfinished jetties already carry echoes of larger tides — the movements of trade, strategy, and history that shape the destiny of small nations sitting at big crossroads.
