Date: 11 May 2024
Speaker: Engr. Altaf Hossain
Topic: Shipbuilding: Driving force for a developing economy - context Bangladesh
Synopsis: Global shipbuilding market value is approx. 180 bln USD, growing @4% annually. Today China alone takes more than 50% of that market, Korea and Japan take another 30%, remaining 20% is taken by the rest of the world.
Century ago picture was completely different. UK used to build 80% of the global market, which later was passed on to other European countries. But they could not hold it for long as it was later taken up by Japan and then Korea. But today China is the real Shipbuilding superpower, whereas UK builds almost nothing of shipbuilding.
We need to understand these dynamics. Who is the next superpower of Shipbuilding?
Shipbuilding is a very unique type of industry. A ship is a massive floating structure, spending most of her Ume far away from the land in the middle of the ocean. It’s a kind of floating world. Naturally she has to be equipped with all the utilities and facilities we need, to live in the land.
Therefore, industrial linkages of shipbuilding industry are extremely diverse. It has a huge backward linkages with other industries like mechanical, electrical, chemical, steel as well as human resource development. Essentially when shipbuilding industry grows, it creates strong demand-pull effect on the whole economy of the country. This may be one of the reasons why China could surpass all the equivalent economies like Brazil, Russia, India etc. (so called BRICS) in just 30 years.
Bangladesh is an emerging economy having a large number of young and talented workers with very competitive wages internationally. Bangladesh also has a wide access to deep sea water and rivers. But unfortunately, Shipbuilding industry in the country did not develop to the level She has the potential to. Consequently, related upstream industries did not develop to the level as well.
OCIEBS should invest efforts to study how the counties like Japan, China emerged as shipbuilding superpower and accordingly advise IEB to take up the matter with the policy makers of the country.
Speaker’s Biography: Engr. Altaf Hossain worked more than 40 years of his professional life in shipbuilding industry. Below is the list of the shipyards and industries, where he served in various capacities before retiring on 31st December 2023 at the age of 65 from the newly established Seatrium (SG) Pte Ltd. as the Head of Production Control and Development, Director of Jurong Marine Services and Chairman of JPL Industries Pte Ltd.
1. Gdansk Shipyard, Poland as Trainee Engineer
2. Chittagong Dry Dock, Bangladesh as Naval Architect
3. IHI, Kure Shipyard, Japan as Trainee Engineer
4. Jurong Shipyard/ Sembcorp Marine, Singapore in various management roles
including General Manager.
5. PPL Shipyard (Subsidiary of Sembcorp Marine), Singapore as Deputy Managing
Director
6. Jurong Aracruz Shipyard (subsidiary of Sembcorp marine), Brazil as President and
Director
For more details on the seminar, refer to attached presentation slides
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