Home ›› 17 May 2021 ›› World Biz
Bangladesh in the year 2020 received a record $2.9 billion investment commitment for its infrastructure development from the private sector, according to a recent World Bank report.
WB unveiled the findings of the report, titled: “Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) 2020”, on Thursday.
In the year 2020, Bangladesh received the second highest PPI investment among the South Asian countries, the WB said in the report.
“Bangladesh is a new entrant to the top five countries and the first International Development Association (IDA) country to enter the list,” the global lender said.
The other four top countries are Brazil, China, India and Mexico.
The country’s 2020 investment amounted to $2.9 billion, a 190 per cent increase from 2019 levels, and increased investment as a share of GDP from 0.34 per cent to 0.97 per cent,” added the report.
Bangladesh had the financial closure of seven projects, including a megaproject—the Reliance Meghnaghat Combined Cycle Power Plant, most of its 2020 PPI investment commitments were channeled to a series of fossil fuel powered electric plants, as per the report.
Of the $2.9 billion investment commitment, conventional power plants received $2.0 billion in 2020, while two renewable power plants received $133 million investment commitments.
The trend is expected to continue for a while as Bangladesh is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and needs a robust power infrastructure that can sustain its long-term needs for electricity, it added.
PPI investments were made in the country in five successive years.
Global investment commitments in 2020 stood at $45.7 billion across 252 projects, marking a 52 per cent decline from 2019 levels. Private investment commitments have not fallen to these levels since 2004, when investment totaled US$31.3 billion.
Nevertheless, despite the ongoing pandemic, investments in the second half of the year increased by 15 per cent from the first half of the year, the report said.
