Bangladesh launches trade portal to woo businesses

Bangladesh has launched a trade portal to provide all export-and-import related information from one point to businesses around the world.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 13 March 2016, 01:37 PM
Updated : 13 March 2016, 02:02 PM

The World Bank, which supports the Ministry of Commerce’s initiative, says this is a first-of-its-kind portal in South Asia.
 
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed launched the portal,www.bangladeshtradeportal.gov.bd, on Sunday at a Dhaka hotel, and said this would open “a new horizon” to doing business in Bangladesh.

“Through this, Bangladesh will remain connected with the rest of the world,” he said.
 
The portal stores information related to existing trade regulations and procedures including laws, administrative procedures and guidance notes, both in Bangla and English.
 
Information of all relevant government ministries, agencies, private sectors, port authorities, standards institutions and customs will also be made available in the portal.
 
Officials of the Irish PM Group, which helped in developing the portal, said this would help increase the speed of doing business and reduce the cost as well as bureaucratic processes.
 

Abdul Matlub, President of the FBCCI, an apex business body, welcomed the move and said this would help all businessmen.
But he stressed on the regular updating of the website and said the FBCCI wants to help the government in this regard.
“It’s meaningless if I click today and find the information of 2010. In the present context, the portal must have 24 hour hotlines, a call centre number and the FAQ (frequently asked questions) option so that businesspeople can get information when they need it.”
The commerce minister welcomed the FBCCI proposal and said his ministry would ink an MoU with the FBCCI ‘soon’ to keep the website updated.