Rangs Group founding chairman Rouf Chowdhury passes away

The country’s eminent entrepreneur and founding chairman of Rangs Group A Rouf Chowdhury died due to prolonged illness on Saturday afternoon. He was 86.

Rouf Chowdhury who was also director of Bank Asia Limited, breathed his last at around 12 pm Saturday at his residence in Dhaka. He also served as Bank Asia Chairman.

Chowdhury was also the founding chairman of Sea Resources Group (SRG) and one of the directors of Mediaworld Limited, the parent company of The Daily Star.

Chowdhury is survived by his son Romo Rouf Chowdhury and two daughters Romana Rouf Chowdhury and Sohana Rouf Chowdhury.

Rouf Chowdhury’s namaz-e-janaza was held at the Gulshan Azad Masjid after the Asr prayer on Saturday. Later, the body of Chowdhury was taken to his ancestral home in Bikrampur, where he was buried after the second namaz-e-janaza following the Isha prayer.

Chowdhury completed his graduation in Business Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. He had a wide range of experience in several industries including automobile, telecom, pharmaceuticals and petroleum.

He was the resident manager of two American pharmaceutical companies in Bangladesh.

Chowdhury was the president of Bangladesh Basketball Association for four years. He was member of the executive committee of Kurmitola Golf Club for over 20 years and was actively associated with many social and philanthropic works throughout his life.

Being in the senior management position at Jamuna Oil Company, Chowdhury contributed for 15 years to the market development of petroleum products in Bangladesh. The huge success of 35 companies of Both Rangs and Sea Resources Groups during a short period is ample proof of his dynamic leadership and progressive mind.

Currently, Rangs Group enjoys the number one position in assembling, manufacturing, importing, exporting, repairing, exchanging dealing and marketing all sorts of electronics and electric goods.

The group is the only authorised licensee of SONY Corporation Tokyo Japan. Today the company also represents Subaru, TVS, ENI, Fuji Electric, Hisense, Malindo and Druk Air, the group maintains close relations with all its foreign principals, thereby guaranteeing quality products and efficient service to customers in Bangladesh.

Besides, Sea Resources Group (SRG) was founded in 1982 with the vision of establishing the deep sea fishing sector in Bangladesh as one of the prominent contributors to the economy. Since the beginning, the Group focused on sustainability and quality control. On top of becoming the leader in the local market, it has successfully turned into a top Bangladeshi sea fish brand (“Fishers”) in the export market as well.

SRG’s end-to-end operation and services include shrimp and white fish trawling, on-board fish processing, 4 jetties, cold storage facilities for fish preservation, equipment repairing facilities (marine workshop, shipyard), and water treatment facilities for exportable fish processing sectors with a technical collaboration with expatriates.

He initiated the creation of Bank Asia in 1999 by acquiring the Bangladesh operations of the Canadian Bank of Nova Scotia. It later acquired the Bangladesh operations of the Pakistani bank Muslim Commercial Bank.

Currently, Bank Asia Limited is a major facilitator of financial inclusion in Bangladesh. It is also providing banking services to the most remote corners of the country through pioneering “Agent Banking” services in 2014.

Since then, Bank Asia financially included more than 5000 outlets and 5 million customers across the rural areas of Bangladesh.