British High Commissioner in Dhaka Robert Chatterton Dickson on Monday said corruption and lack of judiciary supports were discouraging the big British businesses to invest in Bangladesh.
He made the remarks at a lecture titled, ‘The Importance of International Trade”, organized by the Department of International Business at the University of Dhaka.
“Contract enforcement is very difficult in the country as there are a lot of cases pending with the courts, causing British companies to suffer when their counterparts violate contracts,” he said while speaking at the conference hall of BBA faculty.
In other countries, designated courts were in place for hearing international trade related disputes, he said, adding, “If Bangladesh cannot build such a system in a couple of years, tapping foreign direct investment will be tough as there are other attractive investment destinations in the world.”
He said uncertainty in the regulatory regime and corruption were also holding back British investment here.
‘I would not name the company, but a British firm was thinking to come up with big investment recently but later backtracked considering the magnitude of corruption and judicial barriers here,” he said.
Robert Chatterton said in the post Brexit scenario there would be scopes for trade diversification and Bangladesh could be a potential partner in that journey.
‘For the LDC’s we will continue our trade like before but after the graduation from this it will be difficult for Bangladesh and the country need to prepare for that,” he said.
The British high commissioner said in the local manufacturing market the country was doing well and should focus on other sectors than readymade garments.
“Products like fridge, television, mobile handset and other technology products manufacturers are doing well. Beside the readymade garment, the country needs to focus on such industries,” he said.
He also stressed climate change issues, saying the economic growth of the country polluted the air, soil and water and it was high time to take action on such issues.
