Staff Reporter :
Some $1.16 billion investment proposals have come during the just concluded trade and investment summit 2021, said Rizwan Rahman, President of the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI).
The week-long summit was jointly organized by the DCCI and the Commerce Ministry to showcase Bangladesh’s readiness to attract investment after Covid-19 period and to brand the positive image of the country to the world.
Speaking at press briefing, Rizwan said, “We have received expression of interest for foreign investment in the summit particularly in infrastructure sector, which we will forward to the Commerce Ministry.”
Some 552 local and foreign companies from 38 countries participated in the summit, where 369 Business to Business meetings were held in the summit, the DCCI president said.
During the summit, some 20 companies from 13 countries showed their interests in joint ventures and 26 products have been identified as potential for export from Bangladesh, he informed.
Rizwan also said there were few sectors like infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, baby bottle, umbrella, agro and food processing and IT from 5 countries that showed their interest for direct investment in Bangladesh.
Besides, power, energy, renewable energy, dairy products, FMCG, RMG, leather, automobile and jute are some of the sectors that have foreign investment opportunities, he said.
On the other hand, improvement of ease of doing business, policy reforms, technology adaptation, skill development, fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, strong economic diplomacy and signing FTA or PTA with potential trading partners were emphasized during the meetings, he added.
Commerce Ministry Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh said that the country may need to sign FTA or PTA with potential trading partners like EU countries, UK, Canada, Japan, Australia after the LDC graduation. “But averaging duty structure on both sides is a critical thing before signing FTA but the government is working on this matter,” he said.
“For FTA, a drastic duty cut is not possible as it may hamper internal revenue generation and local manufacturers but it may be considered gradually,” he added. Regarding ease of doing business, he said that the government is trying to bring all its major services for instance land registration, mutation, company registration in joint stock companies under automation that will ease the process simplification in near future.
He also echoed the others’ opinion of allowing bond facilities to other export-oriented industries to replicate RMG success models to make them competitive.
