BOI needs urgent reform to boost investment
Saturday, 15 November 2008
The Board of Investment (BOI) needs to be urgently restructured with enough skilled and proactive functionaries to make it an efficient organisation capable of dealing with fast changing global investment perspectives, reports BSS.
BOI Executive Chairman Kamaluddin Ahmed emphasised the point for reforming the country's major investment promotion agency in talks with the news agency Thursday and said a new initiative was underway to reorganise the body.
He said the agency was still having its age old organogram and moreover, running short of manpower, least to speak about recruitment of new generation graduates having state of the art knowledge in business management and investment promotion activities.
Above all, the agency's board of management needs strengthening, and departmental activities redefined in the changing context in domestic trade and investment and inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to new business.
He said the restructuring of the agency was under process now by a specially set up committee. It held several meetings in recent past and several reform proposals would be presented to the Chief Adviser soon.
He would chair the forthcoming meeting of the BOI to consider the proposals. Kamaluddin Ahmed said, "in the globalised world attracting FDI is a major issue and it requires presentation of the country's case in highly professional way."
"Reforming BOI is very important in this context," he said adding "the agency is looking forward to launching a new initiative called 'invest Bangladesh' programme."
The BOI will line up specialised manpower to present the package to overseas investors, he said adding only few developing countries offer such attractive investment package.
He said the country had good investment laws, highly skilled manpower and low cost workers to produce goods at competitive price. These were matters for investors' genuine interest in making investment decisions, he added.
But it remained largely compromised now not only by poor projection of the country's investment profile but also from insufficient infrastructure facilities such as shortage of gas and electricity.
The political climate also needed to be further encouraging, he emphasised. He blamed a neglect of the capacity building of the agency keeping pace with the changing time although it stands at the centre of the nation's investment promotion activities from home and abroad.
In the first place, it remained handicapped, he said under an old law and its functionaries, especially the top functionary remained highly constrained by many restricting rules and regulations to play a pro-active role in mobilising efforts to reach investors and bring them down.
BOI Executive Chairman Kamaluddin Ahmed emphasised the point for reforming the country's major investment promotion agency in talks with the news agency Thursday and said a new initiative was underway to reorganise the body.
He said the agency was still having its age old organogram and moreover, running short of manpower, least to speak about recruitment of new generation graduates having state of the art knowledge in business management and investment promotion activities.
Above all, the agency's board of management needs strengthening, and departmental activities redefined in the changing context in domestic trade and investment and inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to new business.
He said the restructuring of the agency was under process now by a specially set up committee. It held several meetings in recent past and several reform proposals would be presented to the Chief Adviser soon.
He would chair the forthcoming meeting of the BOI to consider the proposals. Kamaluddin Ahmed said, "in the globalised world attracting FDI is a major issue and it requires presentation of the country's case in highly professional way."
"Reforming BOI is very important in this context," he said adding "the agency is looking forward to launching a new initiative called 'invest Bangladesh' programme."
The BOI will line up specialised manpower to present the package to overseas investors, he said adding only few developing countries offer such attractive investment package.
He said the country had good investment laws, highly skilled manpower and low cost workers to produce goods at competitive price. These were matters for investors' genuine interest in making investment decisions, he added.
But it remained largely compromised now not only by poor projection of the country's investment profile but also from insufficient infrastructure facilities such as shortage of gas and electricity.
The political climate also needed to be further encouraging, he emphasised. He blamed a neglect of the capacity building of the agency keeping pace with the changing time although it stands at the centre of the nation's investment promotion activities from home and abroad.
In the first place, it remained handicapped, he said under an old law and its functionaries, especially the top functionary remained highly constrained by many restricting rules and regulations to play a pro-active role in mobilising efforts to reach investors and bring them down.