TITLE:
Study to Formulate Development Strategy of Local Shipbuilding in Bangladesh to Earn Foreign Currency
AUTHORS:
K. A. Hossain
KEYWORDS:
Shipbuilding, SMEs, Potential, Technology, Labour Wages, FDI, Opportunity, Challenges
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.16 No.9,
September
15,
2026
ABSTRACT: Shipbuilding is the engineering technology for manufacturing ships and is an integral part of the development of many nations. Shipbuilding is an early industry that constructs ships and various floating structures. Bangladesh has the necessary resources to become a significant global shipbuilding nation by capitalising on its youthful and cost-effective labour force, rich maritime heritage, and abundant natural resources. However, it is a challenging task to depict the accurate picture and consolidate result of local shipbuilding due to availability of information, constrain behaviour of local and deficiency of global shipbuilding data. The value of present global shipbuilding is approximately 200 billion USD, including the small ship sector alone representing USD 20 billion. The future global shipbuilding market will be approximately USD 500 billion (where small shipbuilding valued 50 billion USD) within 2035. This study found that, Bangladesh has all potential to capture 2% to 5% of global share and to earn about 10 billion USD from global shipbuilding. This study recommends that, the government support, sustainable policy, inclusion of advanced technology, application of contemporary manufacturing process, skill development of workforce, foreign direct investment (FDI), and comprehensive effort are paramount to sustainable development of Bangladesh shipbuilding industry. This study depicts the opportunities obstacles, challenges of local shipbuilding. We need to solve the inherent problems, develop capability and enhance capacity of local shipbuilding before losing the golden opportunity. It is an analytical study, which may help to formulate national shipbuilding strategy to catch the small share (2% to 5%) of global shipbuilding market and earn significance foreign currency.