Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu has called upon the Dutch investors to invest directly or relocate their sophisticated hi-tech industries in Bangladesh.
Speaking as the chief guest at a seminar Tuesday, the minister expressed the Bangladesh government's keenness to increase foreign direct investment (FDI) here and welcomed the investment from the Netherlands investors in different local prospective industrial sectors.
Dutch-Bangla Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DBCCI) arranged the seminar on "Bangladesh: Road to Recovery" at a city club.
Kazi Akram Uddin Ahmed, President of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), was the special guest at the function while Shahzada Hamid, president of DBCCI, and its adviser Ashraf ud Doula gave welcome address and vote of thanks respectively.
The chamber's secretary general, M Zakir Hossain, moderated the seminar, which was attended, among others, by Ms Carmen Gomez Puron, second secretary, EU delegation, and a good number of business leaders from both Bangladesh and Netherlands.
"To transform Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed one by 2041, we need more investment and cooperation from our historical development partners including the Netherlands," the industries minister said.
"If the intrinsic advantages enjoyed by Bangladesh could be combined with the Dutch investments and technology, we could then achieve a terrific transformation for both of our economies, which would create a win-win situation," he continued.
The potential sectors that Mr Amu mentioned for FDI are ship-building, ship-breaking, ship-recycling, automobile, light engineering, plastic, ICT, pharmaceuticals, chemical fertilizer, electric and electronics, agro-processing & agro-based industries, leather and jute products.
The minister also asked all businesses from both the countries to invest their knowledge, expertise, wisdom and finance for setting up the demand-driven industries in Bangladesh aiming to achieve the vision of a developed country.
He also appreciated the DBCCI leaders for arranging the event, facilitating to strengthen the bilateral trade and commerce, and open up new avenues of investment and cooperation between the two countries.
Mr Akram Uddin Ahmed said Bangladesh is now getting recovery after its sickness during the recent past political violence; its economy is very strong in this moment in the South Asia; the country is now growing fast economically.
Echoing with the DBCCI leaders, the FBCCI President strongly laid stress on need for giving training to the people and thus making them skilled before sending them abroad as workers in order to bring more remittance.
Suggesting arrangement of such training programmes in different regions of the country, Mr Ahmed estimated that the foreign exchange reserve could hit $30 billion, if we can send skilled manpower as they will then be able to earn more and more money, and remit it to the country.
Mentioning the need for political stability for development, he said, "If you give us business-friendly environment, we will give you development."
"If we would not have political violence and fighting each other, we had better position," Mr Ahmed said.
He also loudly appreciated the farmers for their patriotic and innovative performance, because of which Bangladesh got sufficient food, leaving the country in a position to export rice.
Emphasising on availability of land and special economic zones for increasing FDI in Bangladesh, the DBCCI leaders sought the minister's intervention to expedite the implementation of the economic zones in different areas of the country.
They also requested the industries minister to organise market-based vocational training courses for the expected migrant workers with collaboration with the Netherlands.
At the seminar, the DBCCI recognised 10 members of the collapsed Rana Plaza rescue team through handing over medals to them.
