Bangladesh discusses FDI opportunities with Singapore

GlobalConnect@SBF, an initiative of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) together with Enterprise Singapore, Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Public-Private Sector Federation (PPPA) and FBCCI recently organized a webinar titled "Business Opportunities and Investment Insights in Bangladesh” discussing the local Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and other opportunities for Singapore.

The webinar provided an overview of Bangladesh's economic outlook, current ongoing developments and present business opportunities available in Bangladesh and the transition towards the post COVID-19 new normal.

Salman F Rahman, Private Industry and Investment Advisor to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh; Mr Md Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh High Commissioner to Singapore; Mr Prasoon Mukherjee, Vice Chairman of SBF South-Asia Business delivered speech during the webinar, where Sheikh Fazle Fahim, the President of FBCCI moderatead the Public Sector Plenary session.

Highlighting the pro-business regime of Bangladesh and the entailing opportunities for Singapore to invest in Bangladesh, Salman F. Rahman stated, “Bangladesh has been exhibiting a strong economic growth prior to the pandemic and even with the ongoing crisis, the country is expected to recover faster than any other peer economies. We are offering Hi-Tech park zones and Economic Zones with special incentives and have fiber optic linkage to union level favourable for any IT infrastructure-based investment. We have an abundant supply of natural resources such as gas water with a surplus of power-related yields. We also have the second-largest freelancer market and a booming ICT sector.”

Highlighting Bangladesh’s strategy of countering Covid-19, the FBCCI President said, “The current Covid-19 outbreak is volatile and its socio-economic impact is uncertain on humanity beyond the border. To address the Pandemic the Government of Bangladesh responded through four key Economic Interventions by prioritizing Govt. expenditure for money circulation, social safety net program with Food Aid to 45 million people & Cash Transfer to 5 million families, Increasing the banking liquidity revising the CRR rate to 4%, REPO interest rate to 4.75%, revised Repo at 4%, and most importantly HPM Sheikh Hasina’s comprehensive socio economic stimulus package worth Total US$ 12.1 bn (3.7% of GDP) targeted to extensively support businesses, exports, agriculture and informal sector including the marginalized communities.”

“In addition, Bangladesh Bank’s 50-50 Matching fund for stimuluses and credit risk guarantee for CMSMEs including those out of the bank-client relationship were introduced to help businesses with all income taxes being reduced, including corporate tax moving towards lower tariff, broader reach integrated automated regulatory framework,” he added.

Ensuring potential investors of Bangladesh as a favourable option the president further said, “With such coordinated and comprehensive efforts we are confident in our economy as it is demonstrating recovery trend with positive growth in July 2020 in trade -both export and import, remittance and foreign reserve. Despite the COVID 19 crisis, we have been able to post a GDP growth of 5.24%, remittance growth of 5.4% and forex reserve growth of 10% in FY19-20.”

“Additionally, for most of the MNCs invested in Bangladesh, the country ranks in the top 5 for profitable operations. With 160 million domestic markets, DFQF market access to India, China, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and through SAFTA (1.8bn SAARC market) in addition to preferential market access with production competitive advantage, that Singaporean investors can take advantage of,” he added.

Mr. Md Sirazul Islam, the Executive Chairman of BIDA who spoke at one of the discussion panels highlighted numerous potential sectors such as agro-processing sector, light-engineering sector, technology for investment and said, “We have been significantly improving the ease-of-doing business in Bangladesh with the introduction of our One-Stop Service (OSS) for the investors, availing more than hundreds of services from a wide range of agencies.”

Md. Ariful Houqe, Director of BIDA; Dr. Masrur Reaz, Chairman of Policy Exchange, Mr. Samuel Lee, Assistant Vice President PSA Marine; Mr. Syed Nasim Manzur, Director of Apex Group; Mr. Syed Farhad Ahmed, the Managing Director and CEO of Aamra companies alongside other respective personalities presented insightful information of the opportunities of FDI for the economy of Singapore in Bangladesh.

 -rmc/