Emerging Blue Economy for Bangladesh: Opportunities, Challenges and Way Forward

Author: M. Golam Sharwar, M. Ziauddin Alamgir, Arif Mahmud
DOI: doi.org/10.70279/bmj-v7-i1-1054
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Bangladesh’s economy had been largely dependent on Ready Made Garment (RMG). Without product diversification, Bangladesh is likely face difficulties to keep up the GDP growth and to achieve vision 2041. Additionally, depletion of land-based resources made it mandatory for the nation to turn their attention towards the south for sustainable economic development. Single source dependency threatened national development, hence the call for the exploration of alternative resource arose. The primary objective of this study is to seek ways by which Bangladesh can more efficiently utilize the ocean resources in a sustainable way by examining the associated challenges and highlighting the o pp ort un itie s therein. Study adopted Document analysis method. The research findings showed a huge vista for blue economy in Bangladesh like Shipping, Sea ports, Maritime education & research etc. The analysis indicated that, Bangladesh has several challenges including absence of governance, pollution, lack of security in the maritime area, lack of maritime domain awareness, lack of coordination, weak educational base etc. Strategies were proffered which include creation of maritime domain awareness, capacity building of responsible agencies, and effective surveillance over EEZ area. The paper concluded that Bangladesh has potentials to reap benefits from the Blue Economy. However, it requires strong political willingness and commitments which already have been demonstrated in Bangladesh.