Bangladesh has embarked on a new promotional campaign to woo overseas Bangladeshis living in North American countries, including the United States, to invest in the country, capitalising on the improved law and order.
The Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) is pushing forward with its mission to attract the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United States and Canada to invest in the country's industrial parks.
"We'll be courting the non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) in the United States and Canada in addition to foreign investors for seizing the new investment opportunities," BEPZA executive chairman Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf said in an interview Tuesday.
"We feel that the Bangladeshi community will be able to adapt to the local environment and they need to tap the cheap labour and the improved infrastructure and governance," Yussuf said.
An estimated 4.0 million Bangladeshis are living abroad, but the successive governments did little to attract them back to their country of origin to leverage not only financial capital, but also the much-needed social capital such as professional and management expertise honed over the years.
So far, the non-resident Chinese have poured roughly US$60 billion into the mainland China, while the Indian diaspora was instrumental in taking the country's information technology sector to a new high.
Taking China, Taiwan and India as examples, a three member delegation led by the BEPZA chief is now en route to the United States to promote Bangladesh as a new frontier of investment.
"We'll be holding a series of investment promotion seminars in different cities of the United States and Canada, notably Washington, New York, Toronto and Ottawa," the BEPZA chairman noted.
The BEPZA chief was optimistic about convincing the expatriate Bangladeshis to invest in their homeland.
"I think it will be easier on our part to make them understand the new investment opportunities prevailing in the country. If persuaded properly, they can invest in the export processing zones, rather than keeping money idle in foreign banks," Yussuf told the FE before he rushed for the US-bound flight Tuesday.
Bangladesh's law and order situation has seen dramatic improvement since the present caretaker authority took over power in January. The interim administration has launched a nationwide campaign to eliminate corruption and change the corrupt political system, a move that enjoys the public support.
For long, Bangladesh's EPZs have been playing an important role in Asia in providing foreign investors with cheap labour, duty-free exports and relatively improved infrastructure.
According to official figures, till May of the outgoing fiscal, the country's EPZs netted in US$548 million in investment, considered highest in the history of the BEPZA.
The BEPZA team is on a 10-day tour and will be interacting with both overseas Bangladeshis and foreign investors in the US and Canada.
The BEPZA chief pointed out that the delegation planned to target investment in specific sectors such as textiles, electronics and heavy metal industries.
Although cagey about disclosing the investment target from the North American investors, Yussuf said: "It will be a substantial amount. We hope our mission will get tremendous response from the investors."
He noted that they would hold an exclusive meeting with Tied Water, an American company that manufactures pet bottles, during the visit. The American company wants to invest in the Mongla EPZ and purchase more than 80 plots there.
Yussuf said he would encourage the investors to invest in Mongla, Uttara and Ishwardi EPZs to take the advantage of lower rents, almost half by the local standards.
But there are still hurdles as far as power supply to the EPZs is concerned.
Yussuf acknowledged that the erratic power supply to the EPZs put a substantial burden on foreign investors, with many complaining about their machinery going out of order and frequent disruption in production.
He, however, insisted that the infrastructure at the industrial parks would get a further boost when two private power plants at Dhaka and Chittagong EPZs are commissioned shortly.
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