A Review on Ship Recycling Industry in Bangladesh from Global Perspective

Authors

Ahammad Abdullah, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Zobair Ibn Awal, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
M Ziauddin Alamgir, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University
Md. Jobayer Mia, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University, BangladeshFollow
Farihatul Mim, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Utpal K. Dhar, Florida Atlantic University, USA

Document Type

Research Article

Abstract

At present, the global center of the ship breaking and recycling industry is in South Asia, specifically Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. These three countries account for 70–80 percent of the international recycling market for ocean-going vessels, with China and Turkey covering most of the remaining market. Only about 5 percent of global volume is scrapped outside these five countries. Bangladesh has environmentally beneficial coastal region and affordable labor that make the shipbreaking and recycling business as a potential sector for the country. In addition, ship recycling and its related businesses are helping to solve our nation’s unemployment issues at all levels of the population. This study provides a statistical overview of ship recycling industries and the difficulties of this sector with feasible solutions. Firstly, this article tries to demonstrate the statistical analysis of Bangladesh's ship recycling sector from a worldwide viewpoint as well as its contribution to the country's economy. The graphical representation of the number of scrapped ships yearly and their GRT/LDT value shows a good comparison of the development of this industry in Bangladesh as well as other countries. Besides, the average number of breaking ships and their GRT /LDT values for a few years (2012-2021) also represents the growth of the ship breaking and recycling industry. The data in this study is based on public online journal articles, conference papers, reports from organizations (NGOs), reports from the steel and other industries, daily newspaper articles, etc. All of these data have been sorted according to country-wise, number of the scrapped ship, GRT value, etc., and represented by different graphical analyses. Despite the fact that this industry has helped the nation to gain a lot of reputation, it also has some challenges that need to be addressed immediately. The later part of this study discusses those challenges of these industries and finally, certain propositions have been proposed in order to overcome those challenges.

Recommended Citation

Abdullah, Ahammad; Awal, Zobair Ibn; Alamgir, M Ziauddin; Mia, Md. Jobayer; Mim, Farihatul; and Dhar, Utpal K. (2023) "A Review on Ship Recycling Industry in Bangladesh from Global Perspective," Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15351/2373-8456.1165

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