Muhith said the country has a lack of both foreign and local investments
International Finance Corporation has suggested Bangladesh to allow foreign and local private investments in the lands of the government-owned power plants and railways, said Finance Minister AMA Muhith.
He said this to journalists yesterday after a meeting with a visiting IFC delegation headed by its executive vice president Jin Yong Cai at the minister’s Secretariat office in Dhaka.
Muhith said the investors could install small power plants like 100MW besides the government-owned big plants like 1000MW using public land and grid facilities.
While talking about IFC’s advice to leave railway sector for private investment, the finance minister said Dhaka-Chittagong route could be made profitable through giving it to private sector.
“Railway has a lot of fixed assets. We can see profit in Dhaka-Chittagong route if private investment comes up here,” Muhith said.
On IFC, he said it was established as a private sector arm of World Bank to encourage private investment around the globe including Bangladesh.
Muhith said the country has a lack of both foreign and local investments. “Both investments – local and foreign – are poor here.”
“IFC is encouraging us to attract more FDI and we sought technical assistance from them in this regard.”
According to a IFC report, Pakistan is doing well in doing business index while Bangladesh’s ranking has fallen by three steps.
Muhith said Pakistan has been able to build an industrial base in last 20 years. “It was due to transfer of wealth from then East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.”
About giving land to Japanese investors, he said the government would provide land to them in Chittagong instead of Dhaka.
Bangladesh has almost received $10bn worth of financial support this year from IFC to facilitate the country’s private sector growth.
In fiscal year 2013, the IFC invested $774m worth of funds to 12 projects in the private sector in Bangladesh.
According to the World Bank report, Bangladesh was ranked 173 among 189 nations on doing business list.
Last year the ranking was 170 in the index.
Although the business regulatory environment of Bangladesh has seen an improvement from last year, it was not enough to bump up ranking in the World Bank’s index on the ease of doing business.
In South Asia, India stood at 142, Pakistan 128 and Sri Lanka 99.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector in developing countries.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
