Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) has set a December 2025 deadline to convert Bangladesh's largest seaport into a fully paperless, smart facility, anchoring a six-pillar digitalisation drive announced at a review meeting chaired by Port Chairman Rear Admiral SM Moniruzzaman.

The measures touch every commercial touchpoint at the port — from bill generation and e-gate passes to break-bulk documentation — and rely on the Terminal Operating System (TOS) as the central operating layer for cargo clearance. Chattogram handles the overwhelming majority of Bangladesh's seaborne container traffic, making each TOS upgrade a system-level event for the country's apparel and manufacturing exporters.

What are the six initiatives?

CPA outlined six operational workstreams at the morning review at the Chattogram Port conference room:

• Container and consignee bills generated and collected entirely through the TOS
• A Sonali Bank PLC booth inside the newly constructed One-Stop Service Center, with online payment via API integration, including holidays and outside office hours
• 100% online issuance of e-gate passes, plus gate-in and gate-out operations
• Auto Pull Payment System activating after 72 hours for unpaid port charges
• Online Special Delivery Assignments via the TOS, with auction deliveries routed through NBR/Customs API integration
• Break-bulk operations brought under the online system on a priority basis

How will the Terminal Operating System change?

The TOS upgrade adds Time Slot Management, online cart tickets, e-gate challans and vessel e-NOCs. Drop tickets, pickup tickets and EIR e-gate passes will integrate with the latest TOS release — a move designed to ease the chronic road congestion that has long plagued the port's hinterland connections to Dhaka and the northeast.

The One-Stop Service Center will also host real-time document verification, bill generation and confirmation, with ICD (Inland Container Depot) integration to smooth landside hand-offs.

What does this mean for shippers and forwarders?

For cargo owners, the most commercially consequential change is the Auto Pull Payment System. Once a container sits unpaid for 72 hours, the port can pull the box automatically — a hardening of demurrage enforcement that should accelerate truck turn times but raises the cost of delayed payments for importers relying on grace periods.

The slot-based truck parking ticketing system at the Bay Terminal, with payment tied to slot-by-slot mapping, signals a shift toward appointment-based drayage. It mirrors the gating practices at major container hubs in Singapore, Colombo and Mundra — and points to faster gate cycles if executed cleanly.

For freight forwarders and C&F agents, the move to API-driven bill payments through Sonali Bank, including outside normal banking hours, removes a structural bottleneck that has historically forced evening port visits to clear dues.

When will the paperless target land?

CPA has directed all stakeholders to deliver a fully paperless, smart port by December 2025. Whether the port can compress that timeline into roughly nine months from announcement will depend on TOS vendor delivery, Sonali Bank's API readiness and NBR/Customs system alignment — three dependencies that have stalled automation at regional peers.

If the December target holds, Chattogram will join a small group of South Asian facilities operating largely paperless commercial workflows, narrowing a long-standing competitiveness gap with India's major container terminals and reshaping shipper expectations for cargo visibility at the country's primary gateway.