A 180-day action plan has been jointly adopted by the four investment development agencies of the government to improve the investment environment in the country and create jobs quickly. The agencies have set targets for implementing 25 initiatives to improve infrastructure, strengthen investment support and attract new investments.
Ashiq Chowdhury, Executive Chairman of BIDA, BEZA and MIDA and Chief Executive Officer of PPP presented this action plan.
This information was informed in a press release on Monday. The plan was presented in a meeting with the Prime Minister on Sunday evening.
Those concerned say that if these initiatives are implemented within the stipulated time, there will be positive changes in the investment environment of the country and the speed of new investments will increase.
According to Bidder’s information, the implementation of this 180-day roadmap aims to make the country’s investment environment more dynamic and increase the pace of domestic and foreign investment. A total of 25 initiatives have been taken up under the plan. Among them, infrastructure strengthening includes 13 initiatives, which is about 50 percent of the total plan. Investment support has 7 initiatives (30 percent) and investment promotion has 5 initiatives (20 percent).
The infrastructure sector of the plan includes modernization of ports, implementation of China Economic Zone, expansion of ‘ready-to-use’ plots in industrial parks, establishment of free trade zones and defense economic zones and implementation of various initiatives in the energy sector.
There are also plans to revive state-owned enterprises through public-private partnerships (PPPs), foreign investment and economic zones.
Emphasis is placed on institutional reforms in the investment support sector and ease of service to investors. This includes the implementation of the initiative to merge the five organizations—BIDA, BEZA, BEPZA, Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority and PPPA.
Besides, it has been planned to advance the activities aimed at the Bangladesh-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), to form a private sector advisory council under the leadership of the Prime Minister, to strengthen coordination between ministries and to increase the use of a single investment service platform called ‘BanglaBiz’.
Apart from this, there are also initiatives to address the problems of large strategic investors and the opening of BIDA’s first overseas office in China.
In the investment development sector, mapping of the country’s industrial sector, initiatives to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in specific sectors from priority countries and development of deep-sea fishing, mariculture and export-oriented shrimp processing industries as part of blue economy development have been planned. There is also the issue of launching a new FDI incentive program.
In this regard, Chowdhury Ashiq Mahmud bin Haroon said, “Our goal is to build an investment-based economy, create jobs quickly and increase the flow of domestic and foreign investment in the country through implementation-oriented reforms.”
Ashiq Chowdhury also said, ‘In the context of the current global uncertainty, priority will be given to help local investors invest and those who are already doing business in Bangladesh, will be helped to expand their operations.’
