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Ananda wins $67m German order to build four ships
12th May, 2008
Ananda Shipyard and Slipways yesterday inked a $67 million deal with a German company to supply four ships, a further evidence of the recent boom in Bangladesh's shipyards.
With the deal, the value of total orders fetched by Ananda Shipyard stands at about $217million for building 16 vessels. Ananda will now have to hand over these four ships of 7,100 dead weight tones (DWT) to the German buyer Hermann Lohmann by 2011.
Afruja Bari, managing director (MD) of Ananda Shipyard, and Hermann Lohmann, a director of the German company, signed the deal on behalf of their respective organisations, according to a press release.
"It's a big achievement. Our main goal now is to maintain quality and ensure timely delivery," the Ananda Shipyard MD told The Daily Star yesterday.
Bangladesh has started drawing attention of the global shipping companies amid traditional shipbuilding nations' focus to build large ships. South Korea and China usually build large ships.
Now, industry people said, these countries are reluctant to build small ships.
“It has created a great opportunity for us," Md Saiful Islam, chairman of Western Marine Shipyard Ltd, which has also won orders to build small ships in January 2008.
"The global market for small ships is worth $ 400 billion ," the Western Marine chairman earlier told The Daily Star.
Local shipbuilders have been building ships of global standard since early 2000. Ananda was the pioneer in wining the confidence of international buyers, especially from Europeans, in 2005.
The company is set to handover its first consignment of ships to a European buyer on May 15.
Cost competitiveness, technical know-how, skilled manpower and above all excellent communication skills of Bangladeshi ship builders helped get orders, industry stakeholders said.
The Ananda Shipyard MD said Bangladesh has been able to exploit the benefit of skilled workforce in building ships as some workers, who have working experience in different foreign countries, already came back to their own country.
Stakeholders said, thousands of Bangladeshis are now employed in Singapore, Korea and Dubai shipyards.
Bangladesh is also known for its small shipbuilding industry, which churns out dozens of launches every year. These shipbuilders have set up their construction units at various places such as Narayanganj and Khulna.
Industry people said about 300 small and large shipyards are now in Bangladesh, which employed about 1.0 lakh people.
Abdullahel Bari, chairman of Ananda Shipyard, said his company wants to construct vessels with higher capacity in coming days.
"In future, I wish to make ships of 100,000 dead weight tonnes," he said.
Release link:
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=36119
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