WB for political, policy stability for investment

World Bank Country Director Johannes Zutt stressed the need for policy stability alongside a peaceful political atmosphere in the country as businesses are reluctant to invest in an environment where policy is unpredictable.
“So, policy stability is very important because the businesses look towards the government to eliminate or reduce the bureaucratic red tapes, which is also very important,” he said, according to a news agency.
Zutt was answering to a question from a reporter at the World Bank’s Dhaka office during its presentation of budget assessment for the FY 15 Wednesday.
Dr Zahid Hossain, the leading  economist of the World Bank’s local office, made a power-point assessment on the proposed budget for FY 15.
Zutt said the businesses want the government to provide a level-playing field that enables all competitors to come to a competition and that also involves fighting corruption.
The WB country director went on saying, “Still, there’s a lot can be done in Bangladesh to improve infrastructures such as improving transportation, connectivity and energy generation.”
Zutt said the World Bank does not work typically in the areas of political governance since the governance has two parts — political governance and economic governance.
He said there is a constitutional democracy in Bangladesh as the last national election was held in January, 2014 although a number of parties decided not to contest that election. “The consequence of that was that the government party was elected easily which was a predictable outcome.”