Deal with Malaysian firms on building flats

Against the backdrop of an acute housing problem in the country's major urban areas, particularly in its capital city, last Sunday's approval by the cabinet committee on economic affairs of a proposal to construct 100 buildings in Dhaka city is a step in the right direction. Under the proposal the apartments will be built for low and middle income groups under technical and financial management of the Malaysian government on a design-build-transfer basis. About 8,400 flats in Uttara area of Dhaka city will be built. Two Malaysian companies will construct the flats instead of the local contractor which failed to honour the contract. They will follow industrialised building system (IBS) to construct16-storey buildings.
The approval by the concerned cabinet committee followed a visit by a six-member team from Bangladesh to Malaysia in May last to see construction of buildings there in line with the IBS. The IBS is a technique of construction where components are manufactured in a controlled environment, either at site or off site. The government had earlier approved the Tk 90.30 billion project as early as in October 2011. The planned large housing complex, upon its completion, is expected to partly remove the worries of the low and middle class people as they are the ones who have been bearing, for long, the major brunt of an acute housing problem. More such ventures need to be undertaken in the interest of people belonging to those classes.
Meanwhile, a section of the media reported about a meeting of the representatives of the private real estate entrepreneurs with the minister for housing where local businesses in the housing sector sought the opportunity to build the flats in Uttara in Dhaka city as per government specifications. The government, as reflected in the decision of the cabinet committee on economic affairs, would prefer the Malaysian side to execute the project for building the flats there, understandably under some form of a government-to-government (G-to-G) business deal. However, the modus operandi of the proposed project is not yet known for certain but the decision itself has tended to raise some pertinent questions. This is more so, because of recent unsavoury experience with the G-to-G system for manpower export to Malaysia.  If the housing project in Uttara is now taken up under the same or similar G-to-G system, its effectiveness would remain questionable.
Moreover, the authorities concerned do need to appreciate the need for holding detailed discussions with the country's realtors about the modalities for implementation of the project, considering its important role in development of the domestic real estate sector. This particular sector has been facing hard times in recent years. In this context, the decision to engage the realtors from abroad to construct the housing project in the capital city, will not give a good signal to the local businesses. Now 22,000 apartments remain unsold. The local realtor, which was appointed for the Uttara project, reportedly on political considerations, had failed to implement the deal even in two years' time. But that should not rule out the genuine domestic realtors' competence to do the job. In view of this, it will be in the fitness of things to make the operational details about the agreement with the Malaysian companies public. This will, at least, make things clear for all concerned to understand or appreciate where the strengths of the Malaysian side lie and what the weaknesses of the local realtors are in implementing projects like this.