The Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) is vertically expanding factory buildings in several EPZs to create more space for expansion of the existing plants or setting up new ones to mitigate land scarcity.
The BEPZA is also looking for suitable locations closer to urban facilities for setting up a new EPZ to meet the growing demand of investors, especially the foreign investors.
BEPZA General Manager and spokesperson Nazma Binte Alamgir told the FE Monday that despite a slowdown in foreign direct investments in EPZs in the past few years because of political and other factors, the demand for space in some EPZs was still high and they were trying to meet the demand by vertically expanding the existing factories.
"An EPZ requires at least 300 to 400 acres of land. Acquiring roadside farmland for the purpose is very difficult and we don't want to cause any necessary harassment to anyone. This makes a site selection more difficult," she said.
She also said BEPZA was carrying out vertical expansion of the existing factory buildings up to 6th floor in Dhaka, Chittagong, Adamjee and Comilla EPZs to urgently meet the growing demand for space.
They had been doing it since 2010 as there was no land left vacant in those EPZs.
The BEPZA so far created 23,600 square metres of factory spaces in those EPZs and distributed them to different units while the work on another 10,148 sq metres of space was going on, she said.
According to Nazma, most buildings in EPZs belong to the BEPZA. Investors have also set up factories buying industrial plots from it and then constructing their own buildings. She said while the BEPZA was carrying out vertical expansion of its three to four-storied buildings, it was also giving permission to the private factory owners to go for vertical expansion of their building.
In that case, it only checks the building design and structural fitness before authorising the upward expansion.
"Vertical expansion is a new dimension in facing land scarcity in the short run," she said referring to the high demand for spaces in those EPZs while industrial plots and in-built factory facilities were remaining unutilised in EPZs in the northern zone.
She said over 50 per cent facilities at Mongla and around 30 to 40 per cent spaces in Iswardi and Uttara EPZs was remaining unutilised.
