Legal protection, tax benefits and rising freight charges  – all these have encouraged new entrepreneurs to sign up in the ocean going shipping sector with intent to take a bigger slice of freight charges that now largely go to foreign ship operators.  Industry insiders say a provision for local vessels to carry 50% cargos, berthing priority at local ports, VAT exemption during imports and ballooning exports and imports have mainly spurred the sector's growth.

Bangladesh’s only container ship owner and operator, HR Lines Limited, a Karnaphuli Company, has introduced two more vessels to its Colombo-Chattogram Express (CCE) service under agency of Clarion Shipping (Pvt) Limited, a subsidiary of Hayleys Advantis Limited.

Bangladesh’s only container ship owner and operator HR Lines Limited, a Karnaphuli company, has introduced two more vessels to its Colombo-Chattogram Express (CCE) service under agency of Clarion Shipping (Pvt.) Limited, a subsidiary of Hayleys Advantis Limited. 

Bangladesh’s container ship operator HR Lines Ltd. will be launching the Colombo-Chattogram feeder service on 4 April, in partnership with Clarion Shipping Ltd., a subsidiary of Hayleys Advantis Ltd. The operation will commence with two of the newest container vessels to be added to the fleet of HR Lines, MV HR Hera and MV HR Rhea with a capacity of 1,454 TEU each.  The Colombo-Chattogram Express service, expands Colombo’s transshipment connectivity to Bangladesh with a fixed day, weekly service. With Colombo being the only deep water port in the South Asian region that can accommodate even the largest VLCC vessels, the need for frequent transshipment connections to regional ports has increased in recent times.

HR Lines Limited announced it will launch a fixed day of the week user feeder service between Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia. The new Bangladesh Express Service (BES) will provide fixed day weekly port calls between Chattogram, Singapore and Port Klang. HR Lines will deploy its two Bangladesh flagged 1,550 TEUs containerships Sahare and Sarera to service this route. Advance Container Lines (ACL) is the commercial manager for the service.