Bangladesh Investment Development Authority’s (BIDA) Executive Chairman Lokman Hossain Miah has said Bangladesh is the best place to invest for investors. He also said Bangladesh is a huge market and we have a large young generation.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) organized an event on “Investment Climate Reforms in Bangladesh: Findings from the End-Term Evaluation of Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund (BICF) Program” on February 2023 at the InterContinental hotel in Dhaka under the chair of the EC BIDA, Lokman Hossain Miah. The purpose of the event was to share data and disseminate findings from the BICF program.
The BICF program has been the World Bank Group’s largest single-country advisory facility for private sector development in Bangladesh to date, funded with UK Aid from the UK government. The program was designed to improve the investment climate in Bangladesh with a long-term strategic approach towards improving business enabling environment, supporting investment in industrial infrastructure and enhancing export diversification and trade competitiveness.
The program focused on addressing underlying issues around investments such as supporting the simplification of regulatory processes, improving the regulatory framework for specific sub-sectors and economic zones, digitizing procedures and supporting targeted investment promotion.
In this event, EC BIDA’s Lokman Hossain Miah has said in his speech, “BIDA is working to make its one-stop service (OSS) 100 percent operational within three to four months to provide prompt services to the investors.” Now we are providing 63 services through 23 organizations.
He invited both domestic and foreign companies to invest in the IT and medical equipment sectors, claiming that both have enormous potential for growth in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is in a very good position, and many of the foreign investors are moving towards the country. “Our rules and regulations are very good compared to those of other countries, and investment is 100 percent secured here” he said.
It is important that the government simplify the process of setting up a business by reducing bureaucracy, providing a stable and predictable regulatory environment, and ensuring a hassle-free automated revenue collection process, he said. He also mentioned that the proper implementation of favorable policies and friendly rules for FDI matters most.
H.E. Robert Chatterton Dickson, British High Commissioner to Bangladesh attended the event as the special guest and said British investors are keen to invest in the aviation, education and financial sectors in Bangladesh. He also said that the UK will be providing more capital to Bangladesh. Commonwealth Development Corporation has been reorganized and rebranded. They have increased the amount of capital they’re providing to the country, particularly focusing on ESD-friendly and climate-friendly areas.
This is part of a wider offering that is also backed up by UK Export Finance; they too have increased the amount of interest in the capital they’re providing in Bangladesh, he added. “We are receiving more private sector interest in Bangladesh that will ultimately deliver economic growth. “The country has great potential to have a much bigger aviation sector than it does now. “Airbus UK is keen to become a partner with Bangladesh to develop the aerospace sector here,” he added.
Mohsina Yasmin, Executive Member, BIDA, inaugurated the event. Duncan Overfield, Deputy Development Director, FCDO Bangladesh and Martin Holtmann, Country Manager IFC for Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, provided opening remarks and Selma Rasavac, Manager, Regional Advisory Services, IFC also spoke at the event which included panel discussions on improving Bangladesh’s investment climate.
The event was attended by Government officials, members from Donor organizations, Think tanks, NGOs and Civil society organizations among others.