Chattogramruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
The port and maritime logistics
Chattogram Port Authority, terminal operators, shipping lines, freight forwarders and C&F agents around Agrabad
The Chattogram Port handled 3,409,069 TEU in calendar 2025 — the first year it crossed 34 lakh containers since container operations began in 1977 — and it handles the overwhelming majority of Bangladesh's containerised trade. Almost every logistics, shipping and trade-finance role in the country sits either here or in a Dhaka office reporting to here.
Export processing zones & manufacturing
Enterprises inside the Chattogram EPZ and Karnaphuli EPZ, plus the BEPZA Economic Zone at Mirsharai
BEPZA is a separate regulator with its own permits, and Chattogram is where its weight is concentrated. For a foreign technical or management hire in garments, footwear, electronics or accessories, the employer's zone status determines the whole immigration route.
Ship recycling
Yards along the Sitakunda coast north of the city, and the steel re-rollers they feed
One of the largest ship-recycling coasts in the world, and in the middle of a regulatory step-change: the IMO's Hong Kong Convention entered into force on 26 June 2025, and Bangladesh's yards have been converting to certified 'green' recycling to keep receiving tonnage. It is a live compliance and engineering employment story rather than a static one.
Ready-made garments & footwear
Pacific Jeans, Youngone, KDS Group, plus the buying offices that shadow them
Chattogram is the second pole of the garment industry after the Dhaka belt, with the advantage that the port is on the doorstep. Leather and footwear is disproportionately concentrated here, and so are the technical and compliance roles that come with both.
Steel, cement, energy & heavy industry
BSRM, Abul Khair, PHP Family, Bashundhara and the refinery and power complexes along the coast
Bulk imports arrive here, so heavy industry clusters here: rod and billet mills, cement grinding, edible oil refining and the country's oil refinery. This is where Bangladesh's industrial engineering jobs are, in a way that is simply not true of Dhaka.
Banking, trade finance & the customs trade
Authorised dealer branches in Agrabad, the Chattogram Custom House, C&F agents, and the Chittagong Stock Exchange
Because the letters of credit and the customs clearance happen here, so does the specialist trade-finance and customs-broking economy. If your work is documentary rather than physical, Agrabad rather than the port gate is where it happens.
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