CCCI for rehabilitating sick industrial units

CHITTAGONG, Apr 11: Chittagong chamber chief Mahbubul Alam said on Saturday the sick industries should be identified and rehabilitated and the work on under-construction industries be quickened.
The president of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) also suggested same and equal facilities including tax holiday to both local and foreign industries and one-stop services for the entrepreneurs.
He was speaking at a view exchange meeting held with industrialists and businessmen in Chittagong. The meeting was organised by the Ministry of Industries in cooperation with the CCCI at the chamber office as part of the process of drafting a new industrial policy.
A useful and coordinated industrial policy alone could ensure economic growth with maximum contribution to the industrial sector besides lessening import dependence and reducing poverty, he observed.
Speaking on the occasion, CCCI vice president Syed Jamal Ahmed said vast tracts of uncultivated land were lying in Anwara and Karnaphuli areas. The land could be used for setting up industries.
The Korean EPZ had been given 2500 acres of land while the company had so far used only 500 acres, he said.
Industries Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan spoke at the programme as chief guest.
He sought proposals and recommendations from the businesses for incorporation in the industrial policy 2015 before finalising the draft.
"Private sector is the guiding force of the country's growth and introduction of one-stop service for entrepreneurs, lack of disparity in industrial management and bringing down bank interest rate for entrepreneurs below the single digit are vital for growth of the private sector," he said.
Those issues would get priority in the industrial policy on the anvil, he added.
Local industrialists, entrepreneurs, experts, trade body leaders and representatives of Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) and representatives of the IFC, BSCIC, BSTI, KAFCO and different other government agencies attended the meeting.
Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) member Professor Dr. M Abul Kashem Majumder presented a keynote paper on the upcoming industrial policy.
Mr Majumder said that environment-friendly industrialisation was the inevitable pre-condition for lasting economic development.
 "To implement the present government's overall development vision by 2021, the government will have to raise the existing 29 per cent contribution of industries in the national income to 40 per cent, enhance the existing 18 per cent labour force to 25 per cent and reduce the poverty by 15 per cent annually within the next five years," he said.
He also said that short, medium and long term action plans would be undertaken for implementation in the new industrial policy.
Under the scheme the backward areas would be given due importance for establishing labour-intensive industries and handicrafts, cottage, small and medium enterprises would be given incentives like financial support from the government, he added.
In the manufacturing sector, the industries having replacement cost of Tk 300 million without land and factory building cost or industries having more than 250 workers other than the garment industries would be treated as large industries. Any RMG factory having a workforce of more than 1,000 would also be called large industries, he said.
Ferdaus Ara Begum, CEO of BUILD, and additional secretary of the Ministry of Industries Ms Parag also spoke at the meeting moderated by BUILD chairman Asif Ibrahim.
CCCI directors MA Motaleb and Mahfuzul Haque Shah, former CCCI president Mirza Abu Mansur, acting editor of Jai Jai Din Kazi Rukun Uddin Ahmed, Shawkat Osman of the BKMEA, Nesar Ahmed of Metco Dairy, Newaz Md Israt Kabir of BSRM and Subrata Dev of Elite Paint, among others, addressed the meeting.
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