A German business delegation, which left Dhaka Friday, has shown keen interests in buying more ships from Bangladesh. Peter Clasen, head of the 21-strong group that visited the country from Oct 25-30, said Bangladesh offered skilled but cheaper ship building compared with China, India and Vietnam. Local ship builders have said Bangladesh could fetch up to $1 billion in ship orders if the country could increase the number of ship building yards to six from the present two.

"Bangladesh has huge potential in its ship building industry. Its labourers are skilled and cheaper than those in China, India and Vietnam," Clasen told bdnews24.com before leaving Bangladesh. "We are very much interested in buying ships from Bangladesh, which could turn into a production base in South Asia," he said. Clasen also termed Bangladeshi carpenters "world class". Ship building requires good carpenters for interior fitting, one of the conditions for getting ship orders. According to the guidelines of the International Maritime Organisation, every country must replace ships older than 25 years from 2010 for better maritime safety and environmental requirements.

European countries alone will have to replace over 2,500 old ships due to the UN body's guidelines, say Bangladeshi ship builders. They say the IMO obligation has resulted in a surge of orders for new ships from developing countries such as China, India and Vietnam. Bangladesh has newly emerged as one of the ship building countries in the region, currently wooing annual orders of half a billion dollars by supplying just six ships per year.

The orders come from Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. "Currently, Bangladesh gets orders of $500 million a year," Md Saiful Islam, chairman of the Western Marine Shipyard, told bdnews24.com Saturday. "But the figure can be at least $1 billion per year if we can set up six shipyards and supply at least 18 small and medium ships in one year," Islam said labour costs in Bangladesh were at least 10 percent lower than China, India or Vietnam. But, he added that Bangladesh will have to produce more efficient technical people to set herself as a ship building nation. Ananda Shipyard is the other company now exporting ships to Europe.

-bdnews