Chittagong Dry Dock Ltd Will Be The Large WARSHIP Builder For Bangladesh Navy

Chittagong Dry Dock Limited will build heavy stealth frigates for the Bangladesh Navy.

CDDL or Chittagong Dry Dock Ltd currently owned by the Bangladesh Navy (BN) established as a complementary to the Chittagong Port Authority under Bangladesh Steel & Engineering Corporation. It was intended to maintenance and repair Bangladeshi flagships & those commercial cargo & container vessels touches Chittagong Port. 

In 2015 Government of Bangladesh handed over the CDDL to the BN. After that the navy planned to build heavy frigates, large container vessels and alike. Already CDDL built a cargo vessel. In order to commence building of Bangladesh Navy’s heavy frigate which would be a Chinese design, BN teamed up with Chinese Shipbuilding & Offshore International Co. (CSOC). 

Bangladesh Navy slated to have 12-14 such heavy frigates within 2030. And, most importantly they want to build them at home which would commercially-offset a certain portion of money will cost the whole program. This frigate program will create a well number of jobs for local engineers, naval architect and many more. Already Bangladeshi public-private shipbuilders showed successes in building small warships and various sized commercial cargo-container vessels which has been exported to the overseas market like EU. 

Chittagong Dry Dock Limited will reduce country’s dependence for the naval ships to foreign shipyards. It also would be a center for maintenance, repair and upgrading hub for such large warships in time. Ultimately, Bangladesh Navy will be the second biggest in South Asia and one of the formidable navy in Asia. For such a big planning country must have a considerable capabilities to design and build warships of her own. Our naval force’s leadership are well aware of that and paving the way for it. 

As of now, CDDL undergoing massive expansion and upgradation processes to host building of advanced heavy guided missile frigate. China assisting technologically in this project. The whole project worth billions of dollars, most of which will be spent of manufacturing of the ships. Still now no one knows which types of design has been selected, even if selected, but it’s certain of it that the design will be one of those which are Chinese shipbuilders showing off in various defence expositions around the globe for last some years. 

As experts believe, Bangladesh Navy maybe collaborating with Chinese to get a customized design according to their own needs. Hence it would be new type of frigate design based on a Chinese one. But it is sure that the superstructure will be a low-observable, I mean, stealthy one. According to BN’s modernization plan this frigate program will be active within 2018. Until then, no one can confirm the whole program’s details.