BIDA invites SAARC investors to Bangladesh, reels off benefits

The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), the state entity that has launched massive doing business reforms, has sought investments from the member states at the ‘SAARC Investment Forum’ in Colombo.

Its Executive Chairman Kazi M Aminul Islam described South Asia as the region with 'highest' possibilities of intra-regional integration and 'largest' potential for expansion by trade and investment among the countries of the region.

He explained that Bangladesh is “the fastest growing country of the fastest growing region, stands out in terms of high rate of growth, confidence of foreign investor, political and economic stability, availability of educated and young workforce, (has) fast growing infrastructure and improving business climate”.

He made a presentation on the investment opportunities in Bangladesh at the Investment Forum held on Wednesday at Hilton, Colombo focusing on trade and investment of the countries of the South Asian region.

Bangladesh is currently ranked 176th among 190 countries in the World Bank’s ease of doing business index.

BIDA, which was formed by merging the Board of Investment and Privatisation Commission in October last year, set an ambitious target of securing a place below 100 by 2021, which means an improvement by at least 15 notches would be required a year.

All the process of starting a business can be completed by seven days now in place of 19.5 days before.

Sri Lanka hosted the Investment Forum drawing over 250 investors, including entrepreneurs, fund managers, CEOs and other senior corporate representatives.

It was themed on 'Unleashing South Asia' and aimed at nurturing greater economic and social cooperation between its members.

The BIDA executive chairman also met the CEO of National Development Bank of Sri Lanka, officials of the Sri Lankan National Chamber of Commerce, members of the Bangladesh-Sri Lanka Joint Business Council, director general of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, the representatives of Sri Lanka Association of Software Service companies and the Chamber of Young Lankan Enterprise on the sidelines of the Forum.

The business leaders showed keen interest for investment in a number of areas including IT. A Sri Lankan business delegation is expected to visit Bangladesh soon.