The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) has called upon the Singaporean businessmen to invest more in Bangladesh, considering the prevailing investment scenario in the country.
The apex trade body made the call during a webinar titled "Business Opportunities and Investment Insights in Bangladesh" recently.
GlobalConnect@SBF, an initiative of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) together with Enterprise Singapore, Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Public-Private Sector Federation and FBCCI jointly organised the webinar.
At the webinar, the Bangladeshi discussants provided an overview of Bangladesh's economic outlook, current ongoing development projects and present business opportunities available in Bangladesh.
Highlighting the pro-business regime of Bangladesh and the entailing opportunities for Singapore to invest in Bangladesh, the private industry and investment adviser to Prime Minister Salman F. Rahman said, "Bangladesh has been exhibiting a strong economic growth prior to the pandemic. And even with the ongoing crisis, the country is expected to recover faster than any other peer economies".
He said the government is offering hi-tech park zones and economic zones with special incentives and have fiber optic linkage to union level favourable for any IT infrastructure-based investment.
"We have an abundant supply of natural resources such as gas and water with a surplus of power-related yields. We also have the second-largest freelancer market and a booming ICT sector," he mentioned.
President of FBCCI Sheikh Fazle Fahim said the government has offered many opportunities to boost the country's business and economy.
He also called upon the Singaporean businessmen to invest more in Bangladesh availing the opportunities offered by the government.
The government has increased the banking liquidity by revising the CRR rate to 4 per cent, REPO interest rate to 4.75 per cent and revised Repo at 4 per cent, he added.
Mr Fazle Fahim also mentioned that the government's comprehensive socioeconomic stimulus package worth total US$12.1 billion (3.7 per cent of GDP) targeted to extensively support businesses, exports, agriculture and informal sector including marginalised communities.
"In addition, Bangladesh Bank's 50-50 matching fund for stimuluses and credit risk guarantee for CMSMEs including those out of the bank-client relationship were introduced to help businesses with all income taxes being reduced, including corporate tax moving towards lower tariff, broader reach integrated automated regulatory framework."
To address the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, the government responded through four key economic interventions by prioritising its expenditure for money circulation, social safety net programme with food aid to 45 million people and cash transfer to 5 million families.
Despite the pandemic, the country's economy is demonstrating recovery trend with positive growth in July 2020 in trade - both export and import, remittance and foreign reserve.
He further said despite the pandemic, the country has been able to post a GDP growth of 5.24 per cent, remittance growth of 5.4 per cent and forex reserve growth of 10 per cent during the fiscal year (FY) 2019-20.
"Additionally, for most of the MNCs invested in Bangladesh, the country ranks in the top 5 for profitable operations. With 160 million domestic markets, DFQF market access to India, China, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and through SAFTA (1.8bn SAARC market) in addition to preferential market access with production competitive advantage, that Singaporean investors can take advantage of," he added.
Executive Chairman of BIDA Md Sirazul Islam said the government has been significantly improving the ease-of-doing business in Bangladesh with the introduction of our One-Stop Service (OSS) for the investors, availing more than hundreds of services from a wide range of agencies.
Director of BIDA Md Ariful Houqe, Dr. Masrur Reaz, Chairman of Policy Exchange, managing director of Apex Footwear Ltd Syed Nasim Manzur and assistant vice-president of PSA Marine Samuel Lee also took part in the webinar.
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