In a move decried by opposition parties, civil society watchdogs, and patriotic citizens as a blatant overreach by an unelected interim government lacking any constitutional legitimacy, the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) on Monday signed a controversial 30-year concession agreement—extendable based on performance metrics—with APM Terminals BV, a Danish subsidiary of the global shipping giant Maersk A/S.
The deal, ostensibly under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework, hands over the design, financing, construction, and operations of the Laldia Container Terminal (LCT) to foreign control, sparking a firestorm of accusations that it undermines Bangladesh’s economic sovereignty and invites undue Western influence amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Bay of Bengal.
The signing ceremony, held at Dhaka’s InterContinental Hotel, unfolded amid a veil of secrecy and haste that critics say flouts national laws and international norms for transparency. Shipping Adviser Brigadier General (Retd.) M. Sakhawat Hussain served as chief guest, while Danish officials—including State Secretary Lina Gandlose Hansen and Ambassador Christian Brix Moller—joined as special invitees.
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PPP Authority CEO Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun presided, painting the pact as a boon for jobs and growth. Yet, in a nation still reeling from the July 2024 uprising that ousted Sheikh Hasina’s regime, the event has ignited widespread condemnation, with detractors labeling it an “extra-legal betrayal” by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus’s administration, which ascended through street protests rather than the ballot box and thus holds no mandate for binding long-term contracts on strategic assets like the port—Bangladesh’s economic lifeline handling 90% of its trade.
“This is not investment; it’s a rushed privatisation plot that mocks our sovereignty,” thundered BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi at a rally in Patuakhali Sadar on Sunday, where hundreds gathered to decry the interim government’s port leases as echoes of Hasina’s discredited deals, such as the Adani power pact that saddled the nation with crippling debt. Rizvi warned that handing Laldia, the New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT), and Pangaon facilities to foreign operators for 25-30 years—potentially including UAE-based DP World, with its deep ties to US defense contracts—risks embedding American naval ambitions and encircling China’s Belt and Road Initiative, while pressuring India’s regional flanks.
“The Yunus regime, propped up by the US deep state and Jamaat extremists, has no legitimacy to mortgage our future,” he declared, linking the controversy to broader governance failures like food shortages, dengue outbreaks, and delayed elections.
The agreement’s defenders, including Hussain, touted it as a job creator for Bangladesh’s educated youth, leveraging the nation’s “hardworking populace” often exported to Europe and America. He invited other nations to invest, hailing Bangladesh as the “most reliable” destination—a claim met with derision from critics who point to chronic low FDI under Yunus’s watch and question why a “new journey” begins with surrendering control of a vital chokepoint.
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Ambassador Brix Moller congratulated the parties, framing the deal as proof of “strong partnership” and Denmark’s 50-year commitment to Bangladesh as its second-largest development partner, with “more projects in the pipeline.” Hansen envisioned LCT as an “ecosystem of people and purpose,” linking Copenhagen to Chittagong through trade and sustainability, while noting Bangladesh’s RMG dominance and projected rise to the world’s 30th-largest economy by 2030.
But such optimism rings hollow against a tidal wave of backlash from across the political spectrum. The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), at a massive November 14 rally in Suhrawardy Udyan, accused Yunus of “puppeteering for Western powers,” with presidium member Mujahidul Islam Selim branding the leases a “clandestine scheme” to outsource infrastructure under modernisation pretexts, potentially automating jobs and displacing 2 million annual youth entrants into the workforce.
CPB leaders like General Secretary Abdullah Kafi Ratan and President Kazi Sajjad Zahir Chandan vowed a protest calendar—including a nationwide rally on November 16 to halt Laldia, an Election Commission siege on November 24, and a November 29 conclave under leftist banners—to “derail this betrayal of the July uprising.” They echoed fears of US “goodwill” gestures, like the USS Fitzgerald’s recent visit or planned drone facilities, as geopolitical gambits tightening Washington’s grip amid tensions with China and India.
Civil society has mobilised fiercely too. The Ganatantrik Odhikar Committee, in a November 15 statement signed by Prof. Anu Muhammad, Advocate Shafiuddin Kabir Abid, Seema Dutta, and Dr. Harun Ur Rashid, slammed the “Jamaat-controlled US-backed interim government” for its “suspicious haste, irregularities, and secrecy” in rushing weekend deals that bypass the Chittagong Port Authority Act’s transparency rules and stakeholder consultations.
They accused the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC)—consulting on the process—of tilting the scales toward conglomerates, citing a 41% tariff hike as predatory evidence and parallels to exploitative IFC roles in Bolivia, Ghana, and the Philippines. “Such a government has no right to any long-term contract,” the group asserted, demanding post-election parliamentary scrutiny and an immediate halt to these “misdeeds against national interest,” warning of “commission recipients” from Hasina’s era infiltrating Yunus’s circle for graft.
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Even within BNP-Jamaat alliances and leftist factions, unity fractures along patriotic lines against perceived foreign meddling. June sit-ins by these groups, a two-day National Board of Revenue strike costing the garment sector $222 million, and a November 1 dockers’ shutdown at NCT underscore the peril: port workers’ federation president Mohammad Harun calls it a “direct threat to national security,” while Army murmurs highlight maritime vulnerabilities. Rizvi, distributing aid to a starving elderly couple spotlighted on social media, tied the port fiasco to Yunus’s unconstitutional fixes, like a proposed proportional representation referendum, urging: “Instead of foreign deals, address people’s suffering—or face the masses’ verdict.”
Under the deal, CPA retains ownership, but APM Terminals and a local joint venture handle operations, injecting $550 million in FDI—the largest European equity stake in Bangladesh—while promising 24/7 green port tech, doubled vessel capacity, and revenue-sharing to ease public spending. Shipping Secretary Mohammad Yusuf defends it as vital to lift capacity from bottlenecks to 5.36 million TEUs by 2030, with knowledge transfers by 2036. Yunus, in a May visit, envisioned a “world-class hub” for landlocked neighbours like Nepal and India’s northeast.
Activists say that, as December deadlines loom for NCT and Pangaon handovers—potentially to DP World—these assurances fuel scepticism. With communists vowing “the people will wake up again” against “slavery to India or America,” and patriots demanding disclosed terms and debate, the Yunus facade of reform teeters.
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