One-stop service for businesses by Dec
Entrepreneurs investing in the economic zones will get all types of trade and investment services from various government agencies within 45 working days of their application, according to the One-Stop Service Rules issued by the Prime Minister's Office on Tuesday.
The rules framed under the One-Stop Service Act 2018 make compulsory for 25 investment facilitating agencies and regulatory authorities to give registration, issue clearance, permits and other documents from one day to up to 45 days.
The services will be provided from the Bangladesh Economic Zones Central One Stop Service Authority, which will be set up this year.
Under the authority, there will be a regional one-stop service (OSS) centres to facilitate investment and trade.
The government agencies will have to deploy at least one official as focal points at the OSS centre to process applications from entrepreneurs in a quick manner.
The Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (Beza) said it will put in place the one-stop service centre by December.
“This is going to provide huge advantage to investors,” said Beza Executive Chairman Paban Chowdhury.
They will no longer need to go from one department to another to get investment-related paperwork done.
“Investors will not require meeting any official of my office physically.”
The framing of the rules came amid repeated pleas from local and foreign investors to ease doing business in order to expedite private investment in the country.
In the last five years to fiscal 2017-18, private investment grew 1.5 percentage points to 23.26 percent of the gross domestic product.
Overall investment to GDP ratio stood at 31.23 percent last fiscal year, according to data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Faster service would encourage investments as entrepreneurs will get everything at one place, Chowdhury said.
Bangladesh has been a laggard in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking over the years. Its ranking fell one spot to 177 in 2018 out of 190 economies due to the hurdles businesses face at the start of their operations.
Among the eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh is only ahead of Afghanistan, which is ranked 183th.
Starting business in Bangladesh is difficult, particularly because the initial spending on getting licence and permits is very high, according to the WB report.
The report shows that 404 days are lost to get electricity connection and 244 days to register property, much higher than the South Asian and global averages.
Under the OSS rule, businesses will get gas and electricity connection in seven days and 14 days respectively.
The highest amount of time will be needed for security clearance for visa for foreign investors and workers in the economic zones.
The Special Branch of the police will get 45 days to submit report on security clearance, according to the rule.
The rule says investors will get investment registration in seven days and investment clearance in 20 days.
The Office of Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms will have to give name clearance in a single day and issue certificate of incorporation in a week.
The rule says land registration and issuance of registration documents should be completed in five days. The Department of Environment will have to issue clearance certificates from one week to 30 days, depending on the types of factories.
Green factories will get clearance within a week while highly polluting industries will have to wait up to 30 days to get environmental clearance, according to the rule.
Investors will get clearance for land use, construction and approval for design of buildings within 30 days. They will get approval from the Fire Service and Civil Defence office on fire safety in 30 days and get licences on fire safety in 15 days.
The Beza will issue work permits within nine days. It will have to give approval for repatriation of royalty in seven days. The Bangladesh Bank will have to give nod to profit and dividend repatriation in 10 days.
According to the rule, investors in the economic zones will get various documents, namely tax and VAT registration certificates, import and export permits, customs clearance and the country of origin certificate in a day.
Officials said the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority and the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority will also establish separate OSS centres to facilitate investment.
The BIDA expects to frame OSS rules next month to take steps to establish the centre, said Tauhidur Rahman Khan, director for registration, incentives and local industry of the BIDA.
“We are providing services in a limited scale,” he added.
