Badrul Ahsan :
A Thai industrial giant has proposed to set up first ever packaging film factory in Bangladesh with an initial investment of US$ 40 million, reliable sources said.
To this effect, a team comprising three members of the Thai company visited Dhaka recently and made the proposal to Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) and to the Board of Investment (BoI), the sources said.
The proposal is the first-ever of its kind in Bangladesh. There is no such manufacturing factory in the country. Initial production capacity of the company would be around 45,000 tonnes a year.
According to the project proposal of the company, after setting up, the factory will meet 50 percent of local demand, sources said.
The country expends huge amount of hard earned foreign currency every year to import packaging film. The films are mostly used for packing export-oriented goods. “We have received a proposal from the Thai company and are working on it,” BoI Executive Chairman Dr S A Samad told the New Nation on Saturday.
“Some of the facilities demanded in the proposal do not seem to be acceptable to us. So we are in negotiation with the company on those issues,” he said.
“We are eagerly trying to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. So relating to the Thai proposal, we will try our best to consider their demands so that the company can invest in the country,” The BoI Executive Chairman said.
“Besides, we are also trying to attract FDI from non-traditional sectors which will help reshape our identity in the international arena,” the BoI chief said.
However, although the quality of the investment is attractive to the BEPZA, officials did not say anything about allotment of plot to the Thai company, as there is no empty land in Dhaka, Chittagong and Comilla EPZs.
The BEPZA has instead asked the Thai investor to build the plant at Mongla EPZ in Bagerhat and Uttara EPZ in Nilphamari, but the company officials did not accept the offer.
“We’ve told them that the two EPZs in Chittagong and the one in Dhaka have no empty plot,” a high official at BEPZA told the NN preferring anonymity.
According to the BEPZA, the Mongla EPZ has around 28 vacant plots and Uttara EPZ 71 plots as of June 2015. Both the EPZs lack gas supply and face acute power crunch.
However, according to a high official of BoI, the Thai company has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a local company for feasibility study.
Export-oriented factories are the major users of the packing film to pack exportable goods. Country’s demand for such packing items is around 45,000 tonnes a year.
Local exporters meet their demand through imports mainly from Malaysia, India, China, Thailand and Korea.
Thai Film Industries Public Company Limited manufactures and sells packaging films of Thailand primarily at home, and in a number of Asian and European countries and the United States. It offers BOPP, CPP films, polyethylene terephthalate and metalised films for use in printing, lamination and adhesive tapes.
The company was formerly known as TFI Corporation Public Company Limited and changed its name to Thai Film Industries Public Company Limited in July 2012.
Thai Film Industries Public Company Limited was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Samutprakran, Thailand.
However, local exporters have hailed the proposed investment saying the production of packaging film will help lessen led time of export from Bangladesh.
“We the exporters have been facing led time complicacies while negotiating with buyers. If we can create sources of most of the raw materials locally, then our export will be boosted up,” Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) told the New Nation Saturday.
The government should welcome such companies in Bangladesh so that our dependence on import can be reduced, he added.
