BHTPA holds talks with KL high-tech park builder

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FE Report
Officials of the Kulim Hi-Tech Park (KHTP) of Malaysia Wednesday met with Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) at the latter's office in Dhaka to finalise negotiation to build the country's first-ever infrastructure of this type.
The meeting will continue today (Thursday) as the key issues relating to setting up of the park are yet to be resolved.
The KHTP officials at the meeting, however, proposed to invest at least US$ 100 million initially to develop infrastructure for the park.
The Malaysian developer said it would be able to attract investments to the park from the world's leading information and technology firms like Microsoft, Intel and other companies.
A KHTP official, who participated in the meeting,
told the FE: "Our meeting with the BHTPA officials held Wednesday was 'very fruitful."
"We expect that we will arrive at a consensus on building the park at Thursday's meeting," the official added.
He said KHTP wants to develop the hi-tech park in Bangladesh as an integrated science park targeting clean, capital-intensive, and high value-added technology-related industries primarily in the fields of advanced electronics, mechanical electronics and telecommunications.
The BHTPA earlier moved to set up the hi-tech park in a bid to add information and communication technology (ICT) and other value-added products to the country's export basket.
BHTPA invited the Malaysian state-owned KHTP to finalise negotiation to build the park.
KHTP is the highest scorer in a bid invited by the BHTPA to build the park at Kaliakoir in Gazipur.
KHTP established the first hi-tech park in Malaysia in 1996 on nearly 4000 acres of land.
Annuar Bin Mohd Saffar, vice president of Kulim Technology Park Corporation (KTPC), Mohamad Suhaimi Bin Mohamad Tahir, a project director of KTPC, led the Malaysian side.
BHTPA managing director Md Azizur Rahman and its high officials led Wednesday's meeting.