Defense Update Bangladesh

Bangladesh commissioned first home-made ASW warship BNS Durgam into active service. BNS Durgam is a Durjoy-class semi-stealth Anti-Submarine Warfare large patrol craft (LPC) of Bangladesh Navy built by the Khulna Shipyard Limited. A shipbuilder from China provided technical assistances to make the ship. This is the first Bangladesh made ASW warship. Two ship in the class has been commissioned by the Honorable President of Peoples Republic of Bangladesh Advocate Abdul Hamid yesterday.  BNS Durgam ship design is the downsized version of the Chinese PLAN Type 056 stealth corvette. First two ships of this class was built china for Bangladesh Navy. Then china transfer the technology to Khulna Shipyard Limited. Here two dedicated ASW version BNS Durgam and BNS Nishan has been built and four more ships are expected to be built in the next two years.  Bangladesh Navy set a goal to build most of the naval ships in home. As per that plan already some small patrol boats, tug...

Khulna Shipyard (KSY) Limited was established in 1957 and currently being operated by the Bangladesh Navy. KSY Ltd has built the Durgam-class ASW large patrol craft for BN. After establishment, KSY built and repaired many cargo & container vessels. It also manufacture various steel structures for industry and infrastructure building.  This shipyard was handed over to the Bangladesh Navy in 1999 with a large sum of debt. After 2008 KSY paid all its debt and started making profit. Now it is the largest tax payer in the Khulna divisional region. Products of the KSY Ltd are various cargo vessels, container vessels, firefighting boats, tugboats, submarine tugs, harbor patrolling boats, Padma-class patrol boats, Durgam-class ASW LPCs, floating cranes, tankers, supply ships and some more.  In the coming years, Khulna Shipyard, slated to build stealth corvette for Navy. For this purposes modern facilities are being installed on the yard area. Bangladesh needs to enhance i...

Bangladesh has a little industrial base for defense equipment manufacturing and assembly. It comprises mostly land systems, small arms, and naval ships. An aviation center has been established but not going further than overhauling, maintenance and repair.  Bangladesh Ordnance Factories, Bangladesh Machine Tools Factories, Dockyard & Engineering Works Limited, Khulna Shipyard Limited, Chittagong Dry Dock Limited and Banghabandhu Aeronautical Center are the only entities in the defense sector.  Government of Bangladesh trying to expand this sector to create more jobs, saving hard earned foreign currencies and ultimately to enhance armed forces’ capabilities to maintain national security.