Despite the pandemic and recent upheavals in the global economy, our economy remains fairly resilient. We have been able to maintain a steady pace of economic growth for the last couple of years, and our economy's consistency has also inspired confidence in the underlying fundamentals of the market.
However, one area that is still keeping our economy from reaching its potential has to be foreign investment. But if the FBCCI is to be believed, Bangladesh is now ready to receive global investment.
Unfortunately, ground conditions fail to collaborate such a bold promise. While the groundwork for growth and stability are in place, when it comes to issues of excessive red tape, an unfavorable business climate, and indeed the ease of doing business, we are pretty much stuck where we have always been.
While Bangladesh has made some progress when it comes to the business climate, for companies, both local and foreign, to set up shop is still nigh impossible. Issues with unfavorable laws and bureaucratic hassle still make investors think twice before investing in Bangladesh, which means that Bangladesh is still not attractive in terms of foreign direct investment.
Moreover, corruption in general ensures that FDI is wasted on plants and production methods that fail to offer attractive returns on investment. This has given rise to a situation where while the fundamentals of our economy is sound, ancillary conditions make it almost impossible to attract FDI on a sustainable scale.
This needs to change.
The administration needs to conduct open dialogue with both local and global stakeholders to formulate methods for improving Bangladesh's business scale. Progress on these activities have to be checked periodically to make sure we are on the right track.
There is no denying that ours is one of the most promising economies in the entirety of Asia, but for us to be able to fulfill that promise there is still a lot of work to be done.
