Bangladesh will place four project proposals - two on subways and another two on bridges - to Japanese investors under the public-private partnership (PPP) arrangements as the next joint-platform meeting is set to begin in Tokyo on March 11.
The subway projects are Subway O and Subway B. The others are the Bhola-Barishal bridge over the Kalabadar River and the Shariatpur-Chandpur bridge over the Meghna River.
Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), which conducted the feasibility study on constructing subways in the city, earlier placed two other subway project proposals at the last joint platform meeting considering Japan is providing all kinds of support for Dhaka's three mass rapid transit (MRT) lines. But no investor showed interest in the projects.
A seven-member delegation led by the principal secretary to the chief adviser will attend the upcoming seventh Japan-Bangladesh Joint Platform meeting, which will also discuss the progress of the previous projects that Japanese investors agreed to invest in.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) of Japan and Public Private Partnership Authority (PPPA) of Bangladesh have organised the joint platform meeting since 2017 to facilitate Japanese private investors' investment in Bangladesh's potential PPP projects.
Though seven years have elapsed since the first meeting was held, sources said only two projects made some progress with investors - Kamalapur multimodal transportation hub, and operation and management (O and M) of the third terminal of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA).
"The Kamalapur project has reached the mature level of the planning stage. The HSIA 3rd terminal O and M is progressing well," said one official preferring not to be named.
He said two other selected projects remain stagnant due to not finding any potential investor acceptable by the implementing agencies.
Another official said though the Japanese investors' proposals for the Dhaka outer circular road and Dhaka airport multimodal transportation hub projects were not accepted by the Roads and Highways Department, those would still be on the forthcoming meeting agenda.
The joint platform meeting is held in either country every year in line with a memorandum of cooperation (MoC) signed by MLIT and PPPA in June 2017. The MoC was inked for cooperation for Bangladesh's economic development by mobilising the skills and experiences of Japanese private companies in the infrastructure sector in PPP projects.
It also agreed to expand business opportunities for Japanese companies. MLIT supports PPP project developments, such as urban redevelopment and highway upgradation by organisations and companies concerned, through the government to government partnership.
At the second joint platform meeting held in 2018, the Japanese side selected six projects, mostly from the rail and road sectors, for investment, but they later dropped two.
Moreover, at one of the following meetings, Bangladesh tabled the MRT-2 project proposal but got no response from investors.
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