Diversification to help log $60b exports by 2021
Bangladesh can reach its export target of $60 billion by 2021 if new products and value addition can be ensured alongside market diversification, said Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi yesterday.
“Now our priority is to ensure ease of doing business, and for this sake we took initiatives to provide all necessary support under an umbrella with a view to promoting business,” he said.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the 14th annual general meeting of the International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) at Pan Pacific Sonargaon Dhaka, the minister also sought the business community’s support to improve the overall environment.
Munshi said Bangladesh had opened its doors to foreign investors for the expansion of business and committed to providing all kinds of cooperation to promote local and foreign investors.
He said Walton, Pran-RFL and Runner were able to enter the international market amid a lot of limitations, proving that there was immense scope for expanding businesses.
Humayun Rashid, president of the IBFB, said Bangladesh needed investment from overseas to go both up and down the global supply chain.
“I strongly believe that now the prime time has come to allow Bangladeshi entrepreneurs to invest abroad legally which will definitely reduce informal capital flight,” he said.
He said the IBFB had gone for several business delegation exchanges with countries including Bhutan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, the USA and Korea to explore business opportunities and enhance bilateral business relationships.
Sheikh Fazle Fahim, president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), said Bangladesh has one of the most liberal and flexible investment regimes in South Asia due to the incentives it offered.
These include tax holidays and exemptions, accelerated depreciation, tariff refunds, prevention of double taxation, facilitation of 100 percent foreign ownership and full repatriation of capital invested from foreign sources, including profit and dividends, he explained.
He also said the FBCCI incorporated provisions for corporate and associate memberships at the chamber as part of trade and investment facilitation and policy advocacy for international businesses present in the country.
MA Razzaque, research director at Policy Research Institute, said the flow of foreign direct investment was witnessing a rising trend but it was not as per needs and the economy’s absorption capacity.
According to him, investment from China was coming to Bangladesh while exports to the US were also increasing due to the US-China trade war but the export growth was less than what Vietnam was experiencing.
Razzaque said Vietnam had reached a free trade agreement with the European Union which would help increase their business and raise competitiveness with Bangladesh, for which steps should be taken to remain in the market.
Among others, Geoffrey Macdonald, resident programme director of International Republican Institute, and Giorgi Gigauri, chief of mission of the International Organization for Migration, addressed the programme.
