Japan's Matarbari Port Plan: Linking Bangladesh, the Bay of Bengal and India's Northeast
Bangladesh's Prime Minister is expected to make an official visit to Japan. Japan's Prime Minister sent the invitation in August 2026.
Ahead of the visit, a senior official of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Matarbari deep-sea port can turn Bangladesh into an industrial hub.
Japan sees the port as the base of wider connectivity for the Bay of Bengal region and India's landlocked northeastern states.
Matarbari is the centrepiece of Japan's Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B) plan for Bangladesh. Japan's aid agency, JICA, funds the port.
The idea links to a Japanese proposal for a Bay of Bengal–Northeast India industrial value chain, where factories in Bangladesh and Northeast India feed into one supply network that reaches the sea through Matarbari.
Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B): Japan's Plan for Bangladesh and the Region
The Bay of Bengal Industrial Growth Belt, or BIG-B, is a Japanese plan to help Bangladesh grow into a manufacturing and trading hub. It focuses on the coastal strip running from Dhaka to Chattogram (Chittagong) and Cox's Bazar in the south-east of Bangladesh. Its heart is a new deep-sea port and an energy hub at Matarbari, an island off the coast of Cox's Bazar district. Japan funds most of it through low-interest loans given by its aid agency, JICA.
Japan's senior diplomats are pitching Matarbari as the engine of BIG-B ahead of the Bangladesh Prime Minister's visit to Tokyo. Their message is that the port can make Bangladesh an industrial hub and give India's landlocked Northeast a short route to the sea. This revives the 2023 idea of one value chain stretching across Bangladesh and Northeast India.
Act East Policy
The Act East Policy is India's plan to build strong ties with the countries to its east: Southeast Asia (especially ASEAN), East Asia (like Japan and South Korea) and the wider Indo-Pacific. It covers trade, connectivity, culture and security. It was announced in November 2014 as an upgrade of the older Look East Policy of 1991. India's Northeast is meant to be its gateway to the east, so connecting the Northeast to the sea and to neighbours is a core goal of the policy.
Japan's vision of Matarbari port serving India's landlocked Northeast fits directly with the Act East Policy's aim of turning the Northeast from a remote corner into a gateway. A port in Bangladesh linked by road and rail to Tripura and Mizoram would give the region a short sea route, and Japan already works with India on Northeast connectivity through the Act East Forum.
- Matarbari deep-sea port: Cox's Bazar district, Bangladesh; funded mainly by JICA loans
- First phase designed for ships of about 16 m draught, against about 10 m at Chattogram
- Uses a 14.3 km channel first dug for the 1,200 MW Matarbari coal power plant
- BIG-B: announced 2014; Japan pledged about 600 billion yen (around US$6 billion)
- Bay of Bengal–Northeast India industrial value chain: proposed by Japan in New Delhi in March 2023
- Siliguri Corridor: about 20 to 22 km wide at its narrowest; the Northeast's only land link to the rest of India
- India-Japan Act East Forum: set up in 2017
- India-Bangladesh port access agreement for Chattogram and Mongla: 2018