It became a center of trade in jute, timber, salt, textiles, oil, cotton, tobacco, pottery, seeds and betel nut.

[citation needed] Rally Brothers & Co. was the first company to begin the jute business in the port of Narayanganj.

Numerous British companies set up trading posts in the area and used middlemen, called beparis, to source raw jute from the hinterland.

[3] In the 1960s, Queen Elizabeth II, Crown Prince Akihito and King Bhumibol were among the foreign dignitaries who visited the Narayanganj port and Adamjee Jute Mills.

The port's surroundings are a vital manufacturing center of Bangladesh, including for the Bangladesh textile industry, shipbuilding, food processing, chemicals, pulp and paper, machinery and metal products, chemicals, wood products, consumer goods and construction materials.