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Businesses in Bangladesh have to wait more than six months to get necessary approvals for starting their ventures in the country while investors in Vietnam get the approvals within only 35 days, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority executive chairman Lokman Hossain Miah said on Sunday.
Mentioning the situation as one of the key obstacles to attracting investments in Bangladesh, he said that the situation would improve in three or four months.
Lokman was speaking at a luncheon meeting organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh at the Sheraton Hotel in the capital Dhaka.
He said that many foreign investors were coming to Bangladesh, but the volume of foreign direct investments was still lower in the country than many other competitor countries like Vietnam and Indonesia.
‘Vietnam can provide all services to investors within 35 days and the time in Indonesia is 49 days and in India 60 days. Our limitation is that investors require more than six months in Bangladesh to get approvals for starting their business,’ Lokman said.
The BIDA executive chairman said that they were working to make the one-stop service 100 per cent operational within three or four months to provide prompt services to the investors.
‘Recently, in a meeting I apprised prime minister Sheikh Hasina of the limitation over providing quick services to the investors. The prime minister asked me to ensure quick services to the investors like Vietnam,’ Lokman said.
AmCham president Syed Ershad Ahmed said that cumbersome policies of the National Board of Revenue were causing bottlenecks in business.
‘It is important that the government simplifies the process of setting up a business by reducing bureaucratic tangles, providing a stable and predictable regulatory environment and ensuring hassle-free automated revenue collection process,’ he said.
The AmCham president said that maintaining political stability, increasing easy access to finance and supplying skills in a competitive cost were also important to encourage investments.
‘By creating a favourable investment climate and focusing on the right areas, we can attract it from both the sources it needs to achieve its full potential and reach next stage building a Smart Bangladesh,’ Ershad said.
He said that the government should invest in infrastructure specially improving logistics facilities and human capital, as these were the key factors that influence investors’ decision to mobilise their hard-earned resources in a country like Bangladesh.
In the meeting titled ‘Investment for Smart Bangladesh’, the AmCham president said that more cooperation between the United States and Bangladesh might attract more investments with expectation of export diversification and attention should also be given to knowledge-based high-tech products amid growing challenges.
Lokman invited local and foreign businesses to make investments in the IT sector and the medical equipment sector, saying that there were huge scopes for the sectors to grow in Bangladesh.
‘Bangladesh is in a very good position and many of the foreign investors are moving towards the country. Our rules and regulations are very good compared with that of other countries and investment is 100 per cent secured here,’ Lokman said.
Ershad said that the proper implementation of favourable polices and friendly rules for FDI mattered most.
‘Good polices in paper and verbal assurances of support by the policymakers will not allure foreign investors,’ Ershad said.
Former NBR chairman Muhamad Abdul Mazid said that without ensuring investment-enabling environment, foreign investments would not take place in the country.
Foreign investors keep an eye on the volume of local investments to make any decisions regarding making investments in any countries, he said.
Mazid also urged the government to improve the situation of the country’s banking sector and the stock market.
ASM Mainuddin Monem, managing director of Abdul Monem Limited, said that scarcity of land became one of the key challenges for investment in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh-Malaysia Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Syed Almas Kabir, Policy Exchange of Bangladesh chairman M Masrur Reaz and AmCham vice-president Syed Mohammad Kamal, among others, spoke at the event.
(NA)
