Keep pressure on government to take economy to next level: BIDA chief to private sector

The executive chairman of BIDA has asked the private sector leaders to keep up the pressure on the government to take the Bangladeshi economy to the next level.

“This government is business-friendly,” Bangladesh Investment Development Authority chief Kazi M Aminul Islam said on Sunday, “But you need to engage more and keep the pressure on the government.”

Speaking at an event organised by the British High Commission and British Business Group in Bangladesh, he said the government needs “bigger alliance” of all stakeholders including private businesses.

British High Commissioner Alison Blake also spoke at the function.

The new executives of the Group re-launched as a trust were introduced in the event. Francois de Maricourt, the chief executive of the HSBC Bank in Bangladesh, is the new chair of the Group.

The BIDA executive chairman said Bangladesh has made huge strides in recent years and in that progress, businesses have played a “very important role”.

He said due to the government’s policy support and creating an enabling environment, the private sector had some major achievements.

He said the British businesses could also be proud of this partnership in the progress.

About 250 British companies are now operating in Bangladesh. The UK is the second largest source of foreign direct investment in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is currently ranked 176th among 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking.

The BIDA has set an ambitious target of securing a place below 100 by 2021, which means at least 15 notches of improvement would be required a year.

It has taken a major reform package to ease the process of doing business in Bangladesh.

Its executive chairman said the government would soon introduce one-stop service that, he assured, would not be “one more stop”.

“It’ll totally be an internet-based system, and you can access it from anywhere in the world.”

“We are trying to improve the business climate further,” Kazi Aminul Islam said, urging the British investors to take the message across the world.

“I don’t want a rosy picture to be told. Let us give the right picture, not the rosy one.

“Today the environment is better than what we had yesterday. I can assure you that the environment of tomorrow will be better than what we have today,” he said.

“The story of Southeast Asia has been told as it evolved. The story of South Asia especially Bangladesh is yet to be told.”

He said in Bangladesh’s journey to be a developed country as envisioned by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina by 2041, the major transformation would be needed, and that has to happen in the private sector.

“The government will be there standing by you, and there I see a big role for the private sector,” he said.