Geopolitics Oct 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Chittagong’s DP World deal faces a 19 October hunger-strike deadline

Chittagong workers set 19 October deadline over DP World terminal deal. Bangladesh signed a 15-year deal on 8 October handing DP World the New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) at Chittagong. The port’s workers now threaten a “fast unto death” from 19 October, The Loadstar reports. Our view: the deal will stand, but the risk is another walkout. In February a strike against the same deal stranded about 13,000 export containers, according to Prothom Alo. NCT carries over 40% of the port’s container traffic, per Maritime Gateway. For forwarders shipping Bangladesh garments, that means real peak-season risk. Our call: expect at least one work stoppage at Chittagong before the end of November.

Chittagong’s DP World deal is done. Plan for the walkout, not the U-turn

Bangladesh has handed the biggest container terminal at its biggest port to a foreign operator, and the people who work there are pushing back.

On 8 October, the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) and DP World signed a 15-year concession for the New Mooring Container Terminal, known as NCT. Under a concession, the state keeps ownership and a private company runs the terminal and collects the charges. Since the signing, port workers and left-wing parties have held “symbolic” hunger strikes and demanded the deal be cancelled, The Loadstar reported on 13 October. Their leaders have set a date to escalate: 19 October.

Our view is simple. The deal will survive. Dhaka has already pushed it through a near-total port shutdown earlier this year, and it has now signed. What forwarders should plan for is not a policy U-turn. It is another round of disruption at the gateway that carries most of Bangladesh’s garment exports, right in the middle of peak shipping season.

What was signed

DP World announced the signing on 8 October. Its executive chairman, Essa Kazim, said: “Through this partnership, DP World will connect the New Mooring Container Terminal to our global network of ports”. Ashik Chowdhury, chairman of Invest Bangladesh, the government’s investment agency, said: “Our objective is to move trade at global speed.” DP World says its network covers more than 60 ports and terminals and handles nearly 10% of global container traffic.

The commercial details came from Bangladeshi trade press. Maritime Gateway reported on 9 October that DP World will pay about Tk600 crore up front, a quarter of it at signing and the rest before operations begin. It plans to invest more than Tk1,000 crore in the first ten years. The deal includes performance targets with financial penalties for missing them, plus monitoring and audits. The outlet stresses that “Ownership remains with the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA).”

This has been a long time coming. The deal builds on a 2019 memorandum of understanding between the Government of Dubai and Bangladesh’s Public-Private Partnership Authority, Khaleej Times reports. In March 2023, a cabinet committee gave in-principle approval for a private operator, according to Maritime Gateway. The outlet adds that the plan then “stalled amid opposition and industrial action” before talks resumed.

Why NCT matters so much

NCT is not a side terminal. Maritime Gateway reports it has five jetties and 14 of the port’s 18 quayside gantry cranes, the big cranes that lift boxes on and off ships. It handles more than 40% of the port’s container traffic. NCT was built in 2007.

The port itself dominates Bangladesh’s trade. Citing the World Bank, Maritime Gateway says Chittagong handles over 90% of Bangladesh’s international trade volume and 98% of its container traffic. Prothom Alo reported in February that Chittagong handled 91% of the country’s exports last fiscal year. National Board of Revenue figures it quoted show 831,270 export containers in 2024-25, worth $42.32bn.

Most of that is clothing. Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment exporters, and most of its readymade garment trade runs through this one port. When Chittagong stops, European and US retailers’ autumn and holiday stock stops with it.

So a protest at NCT is a protest at the main door of a country’s export economy.

What happened last time

The workers have shown they can shut the port, and they did it over this exact deal.

In late January and early February 2026, the Chittagong Port Protection Struggle Council ran a rising series of walkouts. First came three days of eight-hour stoppages. Then a 24-hour strike from 8am on 3 February, which the council turned into an indefinite work stoppage that afternoon, according to Prothom Alo.

The effects were immediate. Prothom Alo reported that the three state-run terminals, the General Cargo Berth, the Chittagong Container Terminal and NCT, went silent. Together they handled 97% of the port’s import and export containers in the last fiscal year. Only the Saudi-run Red Sea Gateway terminal, with the remaining 3%, kept working.

By 5 February, Prothom Alo counted about 13,000 export containers stuck in the port yard, on ten ships at the jetties and in private depots. It put their value at about $660m, or Tk80bn. Normal exports run at 2,000 to 2,500 containers a day. Nine ships with import containers sat at the outer anchorage. One MSC ship, the MSC Polo-2, was stuck at the jetty with 749 export containers. It had been due to leave for Singapore on 2 February.

Ruhul Amin, secretary general of the Container Depot Association, told Prothom Alo: “since port operations are not normal, these containers cannot be transported to the port and loaded onto ships for export.” The paper reported that a garment industry leader warned buyers could demand discounts or cancel orders over late shipments.

The authorities pushed back hard. The Financial Express reported that police banned rallies near the port for a month and the CPA transferred 16 officials over two days. On 5 February, the council paused the strike for two days after meeting the shipping adviser, Dhaka Tribune reported. Two days later, Prothom Alo reported a new indefinite strike from that Sunday. The paper also reported that the port authority had asked the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the assets of 15 protesting staff.

What does that history tell us? Two things. Workers can and will stop the port at short notice. And the government took the hit and kept going. Eight months later, the deal is signed.

What the protesters want now

The same names are back. Humayun Kabir, coordinator of the Port Protection Sangram Parishad, told The Loadstar that workers were “giving the government another bout of time. If the deal is not cancelled, we will go on a ‘fast unto death’ on 19 October”.

He pointed to Djibouti, where DP World port agreements were cancelled, as proof that a signed deal can be undone. His colleague Ibrahim Khokon said workers were not properly informed before the deal was signed, The Loadstar reports.

A hunger strike is not a work stoppage. On its own, it does not stop a crane. But in February, the pattern was clear: a symbolic step, then short stoppages, then an indefinite one. We think 19 October is the start of that ladder again, not the top of it.

The Mongla angle

Dhaka is also building a second door. On Sunday 11 October, Bangladesh signed a $336m loan with China to expand Mongla, its second seaport, The Loadstar reports. The money pays for two container jetties, a cargo and delivery yard, and new equipment. It should add 394,000 TEU of annual capacity. A TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent unit, is the standard measure of container volume.

Rafayet Ullah, a Dhaka garment exporter, told The Loadstar: “The increased number of jetties and modern equipment means the port will be able to facilitate significant volumes.” He said the expansion, together with the Padma Bridge that links the south-west to Dhaka, could make Mongla a real alternative to Chittagong.

We agree on the long run. But The Loadstar gives no completion date, and jetties take years to build. For this peak season and next, Chittagong is still the only realistic gateway for most Bangladesh boxes. Mongla is a reason for Dhaka to feel less exposed to Chittagong’s unions in future. It is not a fix for a walkout this autumn.

What forwarders should do now

If you move Bangladesh exports, especially garments for Europe and the US, the late-October to November window carries extra risk. Our suggestions:

Add three to five buffer days to Chittagong export bookings through November. Tell buyers now, not when ships are already waiting.
Ask your carriers what their plan is if the state-run terminals stop. In February, only the Red Sea Gateway terminal kept working, and it handles a small share of volume.
Watch depot stock levels. In February, export boxes piled up at private inland depots, the off-dock yards where cargo is packed, before anything showed at sea. Rising depot counts are the earliest warning.
Line up air freight backup for urgent orders. A few days of port closure can mean missed retail launch dates.
On imports, expect raw materials for garment factories, such as fabric and yarn, to be delayed if ships queue at anchor. That knocks on to export dates weeks later.

There is an upside too. If DP World delivers on its performance targets, NCT could become faster and more predictable over the 15-year term. That is the government’s whole argument. But the gains come over years. The labour risk is now.

Our prediction

We expect at least one work stoppage of eight hours or more at Chittagong’s state-run terminals before 30 November 2026, starting from the 19 October hunger-strike deadline. We do not expect the government to cancel or suspend the DP World concession. It will still be in force on 31 December 2026. Forwarders who build in buffer now will spend November managing delays. Those who don’t will spend it explaining them.

Sources