About Us

History & Milestones

From one engineering house in 1979 to eleven industries — the decisions, the launches and the commitments that built Gemcon Group.

Our history

Four decades, marked year by year

Every entry below started as a decision someone had to defend. Filter by era, or read the whole run from the first registration in Dhaka.

  1. Engineering

    The foundation

    Gemcon Limited is registered in Dhaka with a single discipline — pre-stressed concrete — and a founder’s conviction that a business worth building has to be worth inheriting.

  2. Marine

    To the waterfront

    Marine Engineering Limited takes the group to the river, adding shipbuilding, dockyard repair and marine civil works to an engineering practice only five years old.

  3. Manufacturing

    Steel of our own

    Charka Steel Limited begins structural fabrication in-house, so the group no longer has to import the frame of its own projects.

  4. Construction

    Building the country

    Castle Construction is formed to take on national infrastructure — roads, bridges and industrial plant — as the country’s first wave of large public works begins.

  5. Export

    Into export markets

    Gemcon Sea Food opens the group’s first export line, processing responsibly sourced shrimp and fish for buyers in Europe and East Asia.

  6. Agriculture

    The first organic garden

    Kazi & Kazi Tea plants Bangladesh’s first internationally certified organic tea estate in Panchagarh — no chemicals, on land nobody believed would grow tea.

  7. Retail

    Modern trade arrives

    Meena Bazar opens its first store in Dhaka and resets what grocery retail means here: fixed prices, a real cold chain, and produce you can trace.

  8. Education

    A university, not a subsidiary

    The University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh is founded on the belief that a country building its industry needs graduates who can think across disciplines.

  9. Community

    The foundation formalised

    The Kazi Shahid Foundation is established to run the group’s health, education and rural livelihood programmes as a permanent commitment rather than a budget line.

  10. Property

    Building where people live

    Gemcon Property carries four decades of engineering discipline into residential and commercial development across Dhaka.

  11. Sport

    Backing the game

    Gemcon Sports takes on cricket at club and academy level, investing in the pathway that carries players from a district ground to the national side.

  12. Digital

    Grocery, delivered

    Meena Click launches online grocery and home delivery, and inside a year is serving a city that has changed how it shops for good.

  13. Sustainability

    A lighter footprint

    Solar generation goes live across manufacturing sites and the group commits to cutting its carbon footprint 30% by 2030 — measured, published and audited.

Recognition

The honours earned along the way

Governance, sustainability, export and retail — the awards our divisions have been given by national and international bodies since 1979.