Nepal, Oct. 9 -- The process to lease Chittagong Port's New Mooring Container Terminal (NCT) by DP World, a UAE-based port operator, in fact the world's biggest port operator, had been mooted for years. We may trace its origins to the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Dubai and the Public-Private Partnership Authority under the Prime Minister's Office of Bangladesh, that aimed at advancing strategic infrastructure development through PPP initiatives across the country.

Although that was signed in 2019, nothing really came of it during the remaining 5 years that AL remained in power. The efforts to engage DP World for the project gained momentum notably under the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus, but ran i...