Chittagong, 11 November, 2009: A 21-member high profile Danish business delegation including top shipbuilders today (Wednesday) visited Bangladesh’s leading shipbuilding company Western Marine Shipyard.
The delegation expressed deep satisfaction seeing the quality of the on-going Danish, German and Finnish ship making projects of Western Marine Shipyard. They also expressed their willingness to invest in Bangladesh. Managing Director of Western Marine Shipyard explain about the company activities to the Danish delegation.
The business delegation are on a week long visit (November 8 to 13, 2009) to Bangladesh. They are mostly active in the production of components and services required for maritime industry and similar industries including marine fisheries/food processing.
As the world starts recovering from the worst financial crisis, business delegations from all over Europe are visiting Bangladesh to explore possibilities of business through partnership.
The Danish visiting team during their visit exchanged ideas and information stating – shipbuilding has a great opportunity in the development of Bangladesh by creating joint ventures between the two countries in the form of job creation, diversifying exports, including fisheries and food processing.
Prior to the visit of the delegation team the Project Coordinator of “Business to Business Development” programme under the Royal Danish Embassy at a press briefing said, “I strongly believe in combining Danish know-how with Bangladeshi low labour costs and hard work in joint ventures (JV) or other forms of strategic partnerships will give Bangladeshi companies the possibility to acquire the necessary skills and experience to support the shipbuilding industry.”
Bangladesh is believed to be 15 per cent cheaper in building small ocean-going vessels compared to its main competitors like Vietnam, primarily due to low labor costs, he added.
Bangladeshi companies are presently capable of producing 40 percent of the components for vessels built for local demand.
