Future Importance of Maritime Activities in Bangladesh

Blue Economy is a concept of economic growth through the sustainable utilization of ocean resources with technological inputs to improve livelihoods and meet the growing demands for jobs without hampering the health of the ocean ecosystem. This paper offers an overview of current maritime key activities, major trends and scenarios, future blue economy development activities with economic and social importance, ecological importance and blue economy policy framework. This paper also focuses on the major constraints and challenges. The current maritime key activities include extraction of living and non-living resources, land based activities, trades and transportation, shipbuilding and ship breaking, tourism and recreation, man-made structures, energy production and, research and survey. The trend data show that the total fish landing and total export income from fisheries has increased over time. However, data on mangrove revenue suggest that in recent years, current revenues from this forest are comparatively less than they were in the 1980s and the 1990s. To expand its Blue Economy, Bangladesh must focus on marine fisheries, non-traditional species, marine biotechnology, oil gas and mineral mining, renewable energy, marine trade and transport, marine tourism and marine spatial planning. However, this paper finds that lack of implementation and enforcement, of management measures, limited planning and coordination are hinder the development of Blue Economic in Bangladesh. Thus a strategic management process integrating multiple stakeholders urgently needed for a sustainable Blue Economy maritime territory of Bangladesh. This research article is available in Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics: https://cbe.miis.edu/joce/vol6/iss2/3