THE FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY OF EXPANDING NATIONALLY AND GLOBALLY: THE CASE OF A SHIPBUILDING COMPANY IN BANGLADESH

Abstract

With 166,0002 kilometer of sea along with over 200 rivers spread widely within the country, Bangladesh is popularly known as a maritime nation. Historically, it is observed that the water vehicles have significant contributions to socio-economic developments of Bangladesh. Particularly, about eighty-five percent of major international trade of the country are conducted by sea (Hasan et al., 2017). Currently, over ten thousand ships are running within inland and beyond in the country. These vessels are accountable for carrying ninety percent of aggregate oil items, seventy percent of shipment and thirty-five percent of commuters. This is a labor intensive sector where above one hundred thousand workers are skilled and the rest, which is nearly 150,000 are considered to be semi-skilled (Zakaria et al. 2010).
Besides, Bangladesh ship breaking industry has positioned itself in the second place globally. This massive sector acts as a prime source of raw materials for local shipbuilding industry to manufacture and repair inland ships. Irrespective of Bangladesh’s long standing proud foothold in the shipbuilding industry, it is only a decade that the attention regarding the prospects of the shipbuilding industry has surfaced. This rise of focus is primarily the results of acts of few shipbuilding firms who successfully achieved cross-border business by building few ocean-going vessels for international buyers. The internationalization of this sector started in 2008 when an ocean going ship—Stilla Marriage—was first built and exported to Denmark by Ananda shipyard. This initiative helped the shipbuilding industry of Bangladesh to firmly establish its footprint into the international arena where opportunities are now wide open for many emerging firms in Bangladesh. The ultimate goal of the case study is to evaluate the financial fe