Improve ease of doing business for more FDI
Bangladesh should significantly improve on the “ease of doing business” index to attract more foreign direct investment (FDI) from the US, Marcia Bernicat, outgoing US ambassador to Bangladesh, said yesterday.
“The ease of doing business indicator is a really important one. You do not have to jump 20 points to make your point,” she said on Bangladesh being 177th among 190 countries in the World Bank ranking.
Improving every year is a strong signal to investors that Bangladesh is serious about attracting FDI and then they will come, Bernicat told a joint press conference after a meeting with Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed at his secretariat office in Dhaka.
The two discussed different issues, including political situation, activities of parties centring the upcoming general election, trade and export.
Every economy needs FDI, Bernicat said, adding that the domestic economic developments were also facing problem for not having an easy way of doing business.
She said the electricity scenario has really improved a lot in Bangladesh alongside physical infrastructures like roads and bridges, although there was a lot of room for improvement.
She said inefficiencies led to money being sometimes spent in unproductive sectors rather than productive ones. It takes a long time to set up a business in Bangladesh for bureaucratic tangles, she said.
The US envoy, who has already completed her three-year tenure here, also said the USAID has been running a project for simplification of customs processes and easy cross-border mechanisms with India.
The US is proud that it is both the single largest export destination for Bangladesh as well as the single largest source of FDI, she said.
“We are not satisfied with the current amount of export and investment. We want to increase the export and investment,” Bernicat said.
Regarding inspection and remediation of garment factories by Accord and Alliance, Bernicat said without any question the safety standards have improved in Bangladesh.
However, the country needs to work more to improve labour rights so that those reach International Labour Organization standards, she said.
Ahmed said the tenure of Accord, a European factory inspection and remediation body, would not be extended although it applied to the government to stay for three more years. The Accord's tenure comes to an end on November 30.
After the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013, the five-year legally binding Accord started its operation in Bangladesh mainly to fix electrical, fire and structural loopholes in garment factories, aiming to strengthening workplace safety.
The Alliance, a North American factory inspection and remediation agency, did not apply for any extension, Ahmed said.
The bilateral trade is heavily tilted towards Bangladesh as America is the single largest export destination for the south Asian country.
Bangladesh exported goods worth $5.98 billion, including over $5.5 billion worth of garment items, to the US in 2017-18 while it imported goods worth $1.7 billion from the US.
