Tuesday, October 20, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 12, 2026 · 8 min read

DP World’s Chattogram deal meets a hunger strike as it builds in Africa

Chattogram hunger strike puts 44% of the port’s boxes at risk. More than 100 port workers and union activists at Chattogram, Bangladesh, began a hunger strike on Monday 12 October. They want DP World’s new 15-year deal to run the New Mooring Container Terminal cancelled. That terminal handles about 44% of the port’s containers (Splash247). Our view: take this seriously. In February, strikes against the same plan halted vessel movement at the port (The Daily Star). Forwarders moving Bangladesh apparel should build slack into November bookings. Our call: at least one work stoppage at Chattogram linked to this deal before the end of November.

Chattogram is the DP World story that matters this quarter, not Luanda
More than 100 port workers and union activists began a hunger strike at Chattogram, Bangladesh, on Monday 12 October. They gathered outside the port’s One Stop Service Building, Splash247 reported. Their target is a deal signed four days earlier. On 8 October DP World and the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) signed a 15-year concession for DP World to run the New Mooring Container Terminal, known as NCT. That terminal handles about 44% of Chattogram’s container traffic.
The protesters want three things: the deal cancelled, its terms made public, and their jobs guaranteed.
On the same day, The Loadstar reported that DP World is putting $90m into Angola’s Port of Luanda. Rivals MSC and APM Terminals are also making big bets on West Africa.
Both stories involve the same company and the same strategy: buying long-term control of terminals in fast-growing trade economies. For a forwarder booking freight this quarter, they are very different. Luanda is a story about the next five years. Chattogram is a story about the next five weeks.
Our view is plain. The Chattogram protest is a real disruption risk for Bangladesh exports between now and the end of November. Forwarders should plan for it now and not wait for a stoppage. We think the Africa investments are good news for those lanes, but they will not change anyone’s rates or transit times this year.

What was signed in Chattogram

A concession is a long-term lease. The state keeps ownership of the terminal, and a private operator runs it and collects the handling revenue. Maritime Gateway reported that under this deal, “Ownership remains with the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA).”
Maritime Gateway also gave the money. DP World pays an upfront fee of about Tk600 crore (roughly 6 billion Bangladeshi taka). A quarter is due on signing and the rest before operations begin. It plans to invest more than Tk1,000 crore over the first ten years in equipment, technology and terminal improvements.
NCT is not a small corner of the port. Maritime Gateway reported it has five jetties and 14 of the port’s 18 quayside gantry cranes. Those are the large cranes that lift boxes on and off ships. It handles more than 40% of the port’s container traffic by that outlet’s count, and about 44% by Splash247’s.
The port as a whole is Bangladesh’s lifeline. Maritime Gateway cited World Bank figures from 2024 showing Chattogram handles over 90% of the country’s international trade by volume and 98% of its container traffic.
The government’s case is about speed. It argues that international expertise, better equipment and digital systems will cut ship turnaround times and container dwell times, Splash247 reported. Dwell time is how long a box sits in the port before it leaves. At Chattogram it currently exceeds nine days.
DP World’s own announcement on 8 October quoted executive chairman Essa Kazim: “Bangladesh is an increasingly important trading and manufacturing economy.” Ashik Chowdhury, chairman of Invest Bangladesh, was quoted on the same page: “Our objective is to move trade at global speed.”

Why we take the hunger strike seriously

Hunger strikes can look like symbolic protests. This one comes from a group that has already shut the port once this year.
DP World says the concession builds on a 2019 memorandum of understanding between the Government of Dubai and Bangladesh’s Public-Private Partnership Authority. Maritime Gateway reported that the Cabinet gave in-principle approval in March 2023, and that the project later stalled amid opposition and industrial action.
That industrial action peaked in February 2026. On 2 February The Daily Star reported port operations “nearly halted” on the third day of eight-hour work stoppages against the NCT lease. Container transport between the port and 19 private inland container depots had stopped. Those depots are the off-dock yards where much of Bangladesh’s export cargo is stuffed and stored.
The next day, the protest became a 24-hour stoppage. The Daily Star reported on 3 February that four ships due to sail and eight due to arrive in the high-tide window did not move. Port users told the paper: “With this development, all types of port operations have come to a complete shutdown.” The same report said MSC Polo had already put off its departure because export containers were not reaching it.
By 5 February the strike was indefinite and in its fifth day, according to UNB in The Daily Ittefaq. Protesters blocked the convoy of the government’s shipping adviser for about 15 minutes as he arrived at the port. At least 15 port officials had been transferred to the ports of Mongla and Payra after an earlier three-day strike.
The people behind today’s hunger strike are part of the same movement. Splash247 named Ibrahim Khokon, coordinator of the Chattogram Bandar Rokkha Sangram Parishad (a port protection campaign group). He questioned whether an international operator would fix the port’s wider problems: customs delays, road congestion and tidal limits on when ships can move.
He has a point on tides. The February reports show how tight the port’s daily window is. Ships could only move in a high-tide window from 10:00am to 2:30pm, The Daily Star reported. A port with that constraint loses a full day’s sailings when the workforce stops for a few hours.
Workers had given the government until Sunday 11 October to open talks, Splash247 reported. A hunger strike began the next morning. That suggests talks have not started. No disruption to operations has been reported so far.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment exporters. Almost all of it leaves through Chattogram in containers. Most of those boxes go on smaller feeder ships to transhipment hubs such as Colombo, Singapore and Tanjung Pelepas. There they connect with mainline services to Europe and North America.
That structure makes a stoppage expensive in two ways. First, the boxes sit longer in a port where they already wait more than nine days. Second, feeders miss their connections at the hub, and the next mainline sailing may be a week later. A two-day strike at origin can become a ten-day delay at destination.
Timing could make it worse. A delay on autumn sailings lands on retailers’ calendars for the next season, not just on a spreadsheet.
Our practical suggestions are these:

  • Add slack to November cargo-ready dates for Bangladesh origin. Tell buyers early that the risk exists.
  • Watch the inland container depots. In February, depot-to-port haulage was one of the first things to stop. If depot gates slow, export boxes will not make their cut-offs.
  • Check feeder alternatives. Ask carriers which Chattogram services call at RSGT Chittagong, the separate terminal formerly called PCT. In February The Daily Star reported a ship from that terminal still sailed while others were stuck.
  • Price the risk honestly. If a stoppage happens, expect carriers to add port congestion surcharges on Chattogram cargo, as they have done at congested ports before.

Meanwhile, in Africa

DP World’s African push is the longer story. The Loadstar reported the $90m Luanda investment will raise annual capacity from 500,000 to 1.2m TEU. TEU means twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard container measure. Mohammed Akoojee, CEO of DP World’s Africa operations, told the outlet that “container volumes at our Luanda terminal have nearly doubled over the past five years”.
Earlier in 2026, DP World expanded at Dakar in Senegal and at terminals in Mozambique, Tanzania and the DRC, the outlet reported. Its rivals are moving too. MSC and its terminal arm, Terminal Investment Ltd, have agreed a 45-year concession at Nigeria’s Snake Island. APM Terminals has pledged some $600m for its operations across Nigeria.
Akoojee was careful not to oversell it. He told The Loadstar that “demand and capacity conditions, however, vary considerably across West and Central Africa”. He also said port capacity has to be planned well ahead of demand.
We agree with him. More quay and more cranes in Luanda and Lagos should, over time, cut the long waits that have made African lanes costly. But new capacity takes years to build and bed in. Forwarders on Africa lanes should not expect lower congestion surcharges or shorter transit times from these announcements in 2026.
The link to Chattogram is the lesson in it. The operators’ playbook is the same everywhere: long concessions, new equipment, more volume. Where local labour and politics are on board, it can work well. Where they are not, the first thing a shipper sees is not efficiency. It is a strike.

Our call

We expect at least one work stoppage at Chattogram linked to the NCT deal before the end of November 2026. It could be partial and only a few hours long, as in early February. We do not expect the government to cancel the concession. The deal has been in the works since 2019, and the first part of the upfront fee is due on signing.
We also expect the handover to DP World to slip. The rest of the upfront fee is only due before operations begin. A protest that keeps going gives everyone a reason to slow down. We do not think DP World will be running NCT day to day before the first quarter of 2027.
In Africa, our call is slower. We expect the Luanda expansion to make no visible difference to Angola freight rates or surcharges before the end of 2026.

Sources