Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed yesterday said Bangladesh is a very good place for investment as the government provides many incentives.
“For the development, continuity of government is crucial as we can see from the past 10 years. Bangladesh is very very good place for investment and attractive to foreign investors. We are offering a better policy support, where a foreigner can repatriate 100% of his profits,” the minister said.
He was speaking at a dialogue “Policy Framework for post LDC Graduation of Bangladesh: Business Perspective” yesterday.
He also said, Bangladesh's global ease of doing business index ranking will come down from 177 to 100 if Awami League is comes back to power again.
The World Bank’s “Doing Business 2018: Reforming to Create Jobs” showed the country slipping from 176 position in 2017 out of 190 economies.
On March, the UN Committee for Development Policy (CDP) declared the country’s eligibility for graduating from the LDCs as it has fulfilled requirements for all three criteria: Gross national income per capita, human assets index, and economic vulnerability index to graduate to a developing country.
Bangladesh will have to undergo two more reviews in 2021 and 2024 to formally graduate from the group of LDCs.
Former Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman in his key note presentation For LDC graduation said: “The main challenge is to create jobs for 1.6 million people a year. For employment generation, we have to concentration on entrepreneurship development as well as SME development.
“Bangladesh is achieving over 7% GDP growth, significant increase of per capita income, and remittance has helped greatly the country to graduate from the LDC status,” he added.
Stressing on exploring regional export opportunity Rahman said China-US trade war will create opportunity for Bangladeshi exports but the manufacturers have to search new destination countries.
For a smoother graduation from LDC, Nazneen Ahmed, senior research fellow at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) urged the government to pave new avenues for women entrepreneurship.
In response to the call, Abul Kalam Azad, SDG affairs coordinator of Prime Ministers Office said government would like to offer 10% Special Economic Zones (SEZs) for women entrepreneurs. He suggested the business community send formal prososals to the prime minister in this regard.
