Finance Minister AMA Muhith has proposed to scale up total investment to 31.9% of GDP in the next fiscal year to achieve the country’s economic target.
The minister made the announcement in his budget speech for Fiscal Year 2017-18 at the Parliament on Thursday.
Of the total, private investment will be 23.3% of GDP while 8.6% will come from public investment.
“Private investment is an important driver of higher growth through increased consumption demand ensuing from employment generation,” said Muhith.
The government has always been active in stimulating private investment. It has identified all supply side impediments to such investment and has been implementing a comprehensive action plan to remove the barriers.
“Stimulating private investment requires a robust institutional structure, and so, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority Act, 2016 has been enacted,” added the finance minister.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority has come into being merging the Board of Investment and the Privatisation Commission.
The minister said the authority has taken various steps to remove impediments to direct investment. He mentioned that One-Stop Service Act has been formulated with utmost care, and under this law, BIDA will provide all inter-ministerial services required by the investors from one point.
“It will, as a result, improve Bangladesh’s position in the Rank of Doing Business’ and draw more foreign direct investment. Presently, Bangladesh ranks 176th.”
BIDA has already formulated an action plan to upgrade its position within 100 within the next five years.
The finance minister also mentioned that finding land to establish industries for local and foreign investors has always been a big challenge.
“Upon this realisation, we have established the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority in 2011. So far, 22 economic zones have been approved while development work of 10 others gets underway.”
Locations for 59 economic zones has been selected while establishment of 76 others has been approved by the BEZA.
“We are planning to inaugurate the development work of 10 other economic zones in FY2017-18.”
In the medium term, 12 economic zones will go into operation. Goods and services worth $5 billion will be produced while two 200,000 jobs will be created, according to the minister.
Muhith said the government has already created necessary legal and institutional frameworks for Public-Private Partnership in order to mobilise private investment in construction of public infrastructure.
To add further momentum to PPP process and make it more efficient, procurement guidelines partnership projects have already been formulated.
At present, 45 PPP projects are under implementation where the share of private investment is about $14 billion. Besides, Bangladesh Infrastructure Finance Fund Limited (BIFFL) that came into being in 2011 will fund physical infrastructure. BIFFL has so far provided Tk2,113 crore for 26 PPP projects.
“We have plans to invest around Tk3,809 crore from the fund in 20 more projects in 2017 and 2018.”
The government is keen to increase the size of ADP and has taken various steps to ensure quality of expenditure and timely completion of projects, according to Muhith.
Thursday, June 04, 2026
