Bangladesh needs to addresses issues like transparency, corruption and infrastructure to improve the investment climate, US officials said.
"Bangladesh is now in the focus of the global investors due to its impressive economic growth," a senior US Embassy official said on Monday.
But there are barriers like the lack of transparency in decision-making process, absence of proper intellectual property rights, and corruption, which trigger "hesitation" among many US investors, the official said wishing not to be named.
The officials were speaking with a select group of reporters on the upcoming 'US-Bangladesh economic discussion', which is scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) in the city.
The Bangladesh government has taken a number of steps to reform the investment climate, but what it needs now is to let the reform work, the officials noted.
"We are pleased to see that many of the reforms have been announced recently. One of the challenges in improving the 'ease of doing business' is not just putting the reform in place but to ensure that they work," said the official.
The US companies want to see how successfully the reforms are working, the official added.
The Bangladesh investment agencies are doing hard to improve the investment climate.
The meeting will discuss the entire gamut of the bilateral economic cooperation to find ways and means to further strengthen the trade ties between the two countries.
The US officials said that US investors are eager to invest in energy, agro-processing, ICT and other sectors and they are watching the investment policy reforms in the country.
Responding to a question, they said the US has the best defence industry in the world and talks were initiated in recent times to enhance the arms trade between the two countries.
They said that the GSP was withdrawn in 2013 due to poor labour rights in the country and whenever the situation improves it might be reinstated for Bangladesh again.
There have been lots of improvements in the labour rights situation in Bangladesh in recent times," they added.
On energy cooperation, they said that US companies like Cheveron has long been contributing to the energy security in Bangladesh.
Recently, some other prominent US companies like Exxon Mobil have shown their interest in investing in the energy sector, the officials said.
Replying to a question, they said that the Indo-Pacific Strategy has nothing to do with the regional geopolitics.
"The main goal of the IPS is to ensure free and fair trade in the Indo-Pacific region," one of the officials said.
He said that in the wake of the Covid pandemic, the upcoming economic dialogue will also discuss issues related to public health.
The dialogue has different emphasis unlike Ticfa.
Ticfa has specific issues like trade barriers, WTO rules, but the dialogue will focus more on functional and practical issues, the official said.
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