Create new business partnership with BD, PM to US investors

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the US investors to create a new business partnership to help Bangladesh become a middle income country by 2021. ‘As we aspire to become a middle-income country by 2021, I call upon the US entrepreneurs to create new business partnerships by investing more to take Bangladesh-US relations to newer heights,’ she said while addressing a luncheon hosted by US Chamber and US Business Council at Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York on Thursday (US eastern standard time). Mentioning that the current US investment in Bangladesh (US$331 million) is much under its potential, the PM said during the past 5 years, her government pursued every possible avenue to enhance US direct investment in Bangladesh. ‘From a meager $36.34m in 2009, in two years time in 2011, we secured $ 117.74m worth of US investment. Between 2009 and 2013 total US investments in the country increased to the tune of $ 331.35m,’ she said. In 2014, Hasina said, US still stands to be the 2nd largest Foreign Direct Investor in Bangladesh. ‘And yet this is still low considering your global investment scales. I would personally want to see these numbers go past the billion-dollar mark within the next 3 years,’ she said, according to BSS.