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In a bid to attract more Indian investors across sectors, the Bangladesh government will towards easing rules of doing business, said Kazi M Aminul Islam, chairman of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) on Thursday while addressing a group of delegates from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The BIDA official further revealed that the Bangladesh Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, had chaired a meeting on Wednesday wherein she asked officials to redesign the country's incentive policy to attract Indian investors.
BIDA is a high-powered government department in the Prime Minister’s Office in Dhaka. The neighbouring country is trying to improve its ease of doing business ranking by entering into the double digit league over a period of five years.
A 17-member delegation led by Arun Misra, who is the chairman of CII’s eastern region investment taskforce, was making a three-day visit to the neighbouring country that began on November 8 and concluded on November 10. The meeting was attended by several leading businessmen of Bangladesh.
Earlier, at an interaction held on Wednesday, the federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), told the CII delegation that it was looking at more investments from India in sectors such as power, mining, electronics, steel, textiles, infrastructure, healthcare, light engineering and education.
“There is a huge scope to invest in the power sector of Bangladesh which is looking at improved technology in distribution,” the FBCCI president, Abdul Matlub Ahmad told the CII delegation. Currently, Bangladesh imports around 600 MW of power from India. A few private Indian companies are also investing in Bangladesh's power sector.
Matlub Ahmad, chairman of one of the Nitol-Niloy Group of Companies, said local entrepreneurs were not only keen to work with Indian businesses, but were also ready to extend all possible support towards them.
While Misra, leading the Indian delegation, said the commonalities between India and Bangladesh could be translated into creating bigger business engagements.
“Bilateral trade has significantly risen in the past few years, but given the potential, it is low. We at CII look forward to working more closely with Bangladesh and create win-win situations for all,” Misra added.
Except for some restricted sectors, Bangladesh allows for a 100 per cent foreign direct investment.
Indrajit Ghosh, director of Panorama Display Technologies Pvt Ltd, said his company was exploring opportunities to invest in digital display in Bangladesh. While Pradipta Mohanty, chairman of the Odisha-based Surendra Mining Industries Ltd, expressed interests in investing in the thermal and solar power sector, apart from collaborating in in mining operations.
