‘Bangladesh ideal place for FDI’

Speakers at a workshop on Saturday said Bangladesh is an ideal place for foreign direct investment (FDI), especially investment from China, the major development partner of Bangladesh.

As an ideal investment destination, they said, Bangladesh has been particularly facilitating foreign investors, especially those from China. The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) alone is providing 23 out of 67 facilitating services to the investors, they added.

Bangladesh-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCCI) and BIDA jointly organised the workshop titled “Investment Facilitation & BIDA’s Investment Aftercare Services” at the BCCCI office in Dhaka.

Speakers also said that if forwarded to BIDA through BCCCI, any investment-related query would be answered quickly since BIDA is the only official partner of BCCCI to deal with the matters related to Chinese investment. From now, BCCCI would hold regular meetings once in two months as provided in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between BCCCI and BIDA.

The workshop brought out some key issues concerning investment from China in Bangladesh. Two presentations were made focusing on the key activities of BIDA and BCCCI on behalf of their respective organisations.

BIDA is also approaching a joint supervision activity concerning technical assistance, skills development and compliance issues, said Avijit Chowdhury,

an executive member of BIDA. In his speech, Al Mamun Mridha, Secretary General of BCCCI who presided over the workshop said, “Easing out structural impediment to doing business, dispute settlement mechanism and efficiency of the government agencies concerned should be further enhanced and interconnected.”

Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of China in Bangladesh Song Yang in his speech noted that the success of Bangladesh is indeed a miracle and China is pleased to be a time-tested strategic partner of Bangladesh, which always attaches top priority to development cooperation and not engage in any internal affairs of this country like human rights issues or any political issue like election etc.

Ke Changliang, president of China Enterprises Association in Bangladesh (CEAB), said that even after the Covid-19 pandemic, FDI from China has increased by 13.5 per cent. As the inflow of Chinese investment keeps increasing, he suggested that the Foreign Ministry of Bangladesh think for forming a security team dedicated to the safety and security of foreign investors.

The open discussions following the plenary session of the workshop addressed a number of issues raised by the participating investors, including procedural modalities at the customs, NBR, easing out visa procedures, long-term visa for the investors, e-visa, investment aftercare services, security clearance from department concerned, required supply of utilities like power and gas.