Bangladesh Won the Sea. So Why Is Its Blue Fortune Still Out of Reach?

More than a decade after securing a vast maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is yet to turn its hard-won sea rights into a major economic dividend. While the country has been sitting on a maritime frontier rich with possibilities, Guyana - a nation of barely 800,000 people - has shown how swiftly offshore resources can transform a small economy.

Guyana’s offshore oil boom has catapulted the once little-known South American nation into the ranks of the world’s fastest-growing economies, attracting billions of dollars in investment and radically reshaping its economic prospects. Bangladesh, by contrast, has yet to find its own trigger beneath the waves.

The contrast is striking. Guyana looked beneath the sea and found an economic jackpot; Bangladesh secured an enormous maritime domain but has yet to turn that strategic victory into a comparable stream of investment, exports, jobs and foreign exchange.

That widening gap is now raising an uncomfortable question among economists and policymakers: if Guyana could turn its offshore waters into a growth engine, what is stopping Bangladesh from turning its far larger maritime frontier into one?

The stakes are enormous. Bangladesh’s Blue Economy has the potential to become a cornerstone of national development, contributing 3-5 per cent or more to GDP over the next decade. The maritime economy already generates an estimated $6 billion a year, equivalent to about 3 per cent of GDP.

But experts and government assessments suggest that this could be only the beginning. With a coordinated national strategy, stronger institutions and investment in maritime industries, annual blue-economy earnings could potentially double or even triple to $12 billion-$18 billion.

The sea has already been won. The real battle now is to make it pay.

The World Bank says marine fishing activity is largely confined to waters of about 80 metres in depth - roughly one-third of Bangladesh's Exclusive Economic Zone - while commercially significant fishing grounds are already under pressure from overfishing. 

The contrast is striking. Bangladesh won its maritime rights through international arbitration, but has yet to translate that legal victory into a comparable economic dividend.


One  economist asked  how Guyana, a country of only around 800,000 people a few years ago, became one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Its answer was offshore oil.

Guyana's experience is extraordinary. The IMF says real GDP expanded by about 43.6 per cent in 2024, following growth of 33.8 per cent in 2023, with rapidly rising oil production driving the transformation. The Fund currently projects growth of 23 per cent in 2025 and 21 per cent in 2026. 

Bangladesh does not have Guyana's proven oil reserves, and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. But Guyana demonstrates a broader lesson: maritime resources create economic value only when backed by investment, technology, infrastructure, sound regulation and institutional capacity.

That is precisely where Bangladesh's challenge begins.

A second chance in offshore exploration
Bangladesh's offshore oil and gas sector provides perhaps the clearest test of whether the country is serious about exploiting its blue economy.

The 2024 offshore bidding round failed to attract bids, despite interest from international oil companies. The government has since redesigned the framework and launched a new bidding round covering 26 offshore blocks - 11 in shallow water and 15 in deep water.

This time, there are signs of greater international interest. BP has expressed interest in the 2026 offshore bidding round, according to officials at the Energy Division and Petrobangla. The company sought details for purchasing bid documents, signalling a potentially important shift from the previous round. 

This second opportunity must not be wasted.
For international oil companies, attractive production-sharing terms are only one part of the equation. Investors also need reliable geological and seismic data, transparent bidding procedures, predictable taxation, efficient regulatory approvals, protection of contractual rights and credible dispute-resolution mechanisms.

The failure of the previous bidding round should therefore be treated not as an embarrassment to be forgotten, but as a policy diagnostic.

The government should publicly identify why investors stayed away and demonstrate how the new framework addresses those concerns.

The issue is no longer simply whether Bangladesh has offshore blocks. It is whether Bangladesh can make those blocks commercially investable.

The Institutional Problem
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the blue economy is not beneath the water but inside the government.

Bangladesh's maritime affairs are spread across multiple ministries, departments and regulators dealing separately with fisheries, shipping, ports, energy, tourism, environment and coastal development. Such fragmentation makes it difficult to develop a coherent investment strategy or resolve competing claims over maritime space.

This is particularly important because different industries can compete for the same waters. Offshore energy projects can affect fishing grounds; ports can alter coastal ecosystems; tourism can put pressure on marine habitats; and conservation zones can overlap with petroleum exploration areas.

The government now appears to recognise the problem. In April 2026, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said the government was considering an institutional framework for the blue economy and steps towards Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). A National Blue Economy Authority is also under consideration.

That could be a significant step forward - provided the proposed authority has genuine coordinating powers rather than becoming another bureaucratic layer.


Ghana's Emerging Model Is Worth Watching
Ghana offers Bangladesh a useful contemporary example.

Rather than allowing different ministries to pursue separate maritime agendas, Ghana is developing a national Blue Economy Policy through a whole-of-government approach. In 2026, an 18-member technical team drawn from 15 ministries and institutions was tasked with developing the country's policy after Cabinet approved the Ghana Blue Economy Strategy and directed the establishment of a commission to oversee implementation. 

Ghana's draft framework is organised around six pillars: Blue Wealth, Blue Health, Blue Knowledge, Blue Finance, Blue Equity, and Blue Safety and Security. 

More importantly, Ghana is working to harmonise its Blue Economy Strategy with its Sustainable Ocean Plan in an effort to improve policy coherence, reduce duplication and establish clear implementation and monitoring mechanisms. 

That is an important lesson for Bangladesh.

The challenge is not merely to announce a blue-economy policy. It is to ensure that energy policy, fisheries policy, environmental regulation, shipping policy, tourism strategy and investment policy work together.

Fisheries: The Most Immediate Opportunity
Bangladesh may not need to wait for an oil discovery to start earning more from its maritime resources.

Marine fisheries offer a more immediate opportunity, but the sector needs a fundamental shift from low-value extraction to technology-intensive, sustainable commercial fishing.

The World Bank says Bangladesh's marine fisheries remain concentrated in a fraction of the country's maritime territory. Its 2024 assessment identified overfishing, juvenile catch and illegal trawling as major threats to marine ecosystems. Bangladesh had 231 active industrial large trawlers and about 30,000 smaller artisanal vessels in 2023, while only around 14,600 square kilometres of the continental shelf were identified as commercially significant fishing grounds. 

The answer is not simply to put more boats into the water.

Bangladesh needs deep-sea fishing vessels, modern navigation and tracking systems, scientific stock assessments, sustainable quotas, cold-storage chains, processing facilities and international partnerships.
The economic objective should be value addition rather than volume extraction.

Instead of exporting low-value or unprocessed marine products, Bangladesh should target high-value frozen, processed, packaged and internationally certified seafood.

The same principle applies to aquaculture, mariculture and seaweed production.

Foreign Investment Could Unlock The Next Phase
The blue economy will require capital on a scale that public spending alone cannot provide.

Foreign investors could play a major role in offshore exploration, deep-sea fishing, port logistics, shipbuilding, marine tourism, aquaculture, renewable energy and marine biotechnology.

But foreign investment will not arrive simply because Bangladesh announces that the sea has potential.

Investors look for bankable projects, predictable regulation, reliable infrastructure, transparent procurement, reasonable risk allocation and the ability to repatriate legitimate returns.

This is where Bangladesh's financial sector can also become part of the strategy.

Blue bonds, blended finance, credit guarantees, specialised project finance, marine insurance and public-private partnerships could mobilise both domestic and foreign capital.

Seychelles demonstrated that innovative marine finance is possible even for a small developing economy when it issued the world's first sovereign blue bond in 2018 to support sustainable marine and fisheries projects.

For Bangladesh, however, the first task should be to develop a pipeline of commercially and environmentally credible projects that banks and investors can actually finance.
The blue economy needs investment products, not just investment slogans.

Matarbari: From Port Project To Regional Gateway
Maritime logistics offers another major opportunity.

Matarbari Deep Sea Port has the potential to overcome some of the limitations of Chattogram port and enable Bangladesh to handle larger vessels. Its strategic location could strengthen the country's role as a logistics and trading hub for its own economy as well as neighbouring markets, including Nepal, Bhutan and India's north-eastern states.

But the economic benefit will depend on what Bangladesh builds around the port.

Matarbari should be developed as part of an integrated maritime-industrial ecosystem involving logistics parks, warehousing, customs facilities, ship repair, manufacturing, freight services and regional supply chains.

The objective should not merely be to handle more ships; it should be to capture more value from every ship.

Environmental protection must be part of the investment strategy
There is another danger: Bangladesh could pursue the blue economy so aggressively that it damages the very marine resources on which the sector depends.

Offshore drilling, intensive fishing, port development, tourism and aquaculture all carry environmental risks.

The country's Environment Conservation Rules 2023 provide a framework for environmental classification, clearance and impact assessment. The challenge is ensuring that these requirements are rigorously applied to major marine projects and that monitoring does not end once an investment receives approval.

Bangladesh needs marine environmental baselines, cumulative-impact assessments, stronger monitoring, pollution controls, fisheries safeguards and transparent disclosure of environmental performance.
A blue economy that destroys its natural capital is not an economic strategy; it is resource depletion under a new name.

The Policy Test
Bangladesh now faces a choice.

It can continue treating fisheries, shipping, energy, tourism, ports and marine conservation as separate policy compartments.

Or it can treat the Bay of Bengal as a single national economic and ecological asset.

The second approach requires an empowered National Blue Economy Authority, a legally enforceable Marine Spatial Plan, a national ocean-data system, a pipeline of investment-ready projects and a regulatory regime that gives investors certainty while protecting marine ecosystems.

It also requires measurable targets - for foreign investment, exports, employment, maritime trade, energy production, fisheries productivity and environmental sustainability.

The examples of Guyana, Norway, Qatar and Ghana demonstrate different routes to unlocking maritime wealth. They do not provide Bangladesh with a ready-made model. But they establish one common principle:
The sea does not automatically create prosperity. Institutions do.

Bangladesh has the maritime territory, the strategic location, a large workforce and an increasingly capable private sector. It now has another opportunity to test its offshore potential, with BP's interest in the latest bidding round providing an encouraging early signal. 

What Bangladesh needs most is not another declaration of the blue economy's enormous potential.

It needs policy certainty, institutional coordination, scientific capacity, investment-ready projects and speed of execution.

The country has already won the legal battle for the sea.

The next battle is economic - and this time, the decisive contest will be fought not in international tribunals, but in Bangladesh's ministries, boardrooms, laboratories and investment markets.

The Writer ia the Consulting Editor of the Daily Observer. Email: [email protected]