Faruque Ahmed
A new initiative is under way to merge Board of Investment (BOI) and Privatization Board to create a new organization to cater to the need of growing industrialization in the country. The move has taken roots to develop such a body which can meet the changing needs of the country’s industrial expansion.
Bangladesh is facing severe scarcity of land having access to urban centres and transportation network to set up new mills and factories by local and foreign investors. Japanese investors have urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to provide hassle free land closer to cities to make investment in the country to bring their business here.
Similarly, many investors from home and other countries are also facing constraints to set up new industry as Bangladesh is becoming a growing partner to global trading houses with a fast growing textile and garment sector at home and other merchandize with a big local market and duty free export facility to external markets.
Land use rationalization
Meanwhile, organizations like BEPZA (Bangladesh Export Promotion Zones Authority) and the newly set up BEZA (Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority) have no land in hand to provide investors to go for expansion of their existing industry or set up new ones.
Board of Investment (BOI) is only giving new registration to investment proposals but it has no access to land to utilise such investment into reality and create jobs. Meanwhile, the Privatization Commission (PC) has also become counter-productive because the government is not interested to sell any new state owned enterprise (SOEs) mostly on political consideration.
The SOEs have enough excess unused land for establishing new plants. Under this circumstance, the government has taken the move to merge the BOI and PC to reorganize them under a new entity which will be able to give investment registration and also land to the genuine investors.
Reports say the SOEs have at least 1600 acres of land having inbuilt gas, electricity, internal road and transport network where an investor may set up plants immediately. But the size of the land at almost every SOE is so huge where several new factories may be set up and that require either fragmentation of the land or several investors together to utilize it.
The government has therefore decided either to make allocation of land to single investor breaking it into several plots or set up a common industrial park to accommodate more investors together. The new organization is envisioned to take up this responsibility of using public land and accelerate investment to achieve higher industrial growth.
Reports also say that the government has set up a five-member committee with an additional secretary of the cabinet division to fix up an organogram and suggest measures how the merger may be carried out with redeployment of manpower and recruitment of other skilled manpower to deliver the goods.
Earlier privation misused
The committee is expected to submit reports by the end of July. Meanwhile steps are also under way to use land lying idle with other organizations. Experts believe that it is a timely move at a time when privatization of SOEs was widely used under political cover to take over public property and use it for real estate purpose.
Meanwhile studies carried out by the Privatization Commission showed that at least 40 percent of earlier divested property was misused or did not properly function to achieve the target of their privatization. So the government has shifted its focus now from pushing the privatization drive forward to using excess land with them to pave the way of setting up new mills and factories at those places. Meanwhile, BEZA has been set up to promote local and foreign investment in land that may be available from government mills and factories now either sick or remaining closed for various reasons.
Business leaders and chamber bodies believe that it is a right step at a time foreign investors are taking Bangladesh into consideration for investment however keeping watchful eyes on the country’s fragile political stability and security issues.
There is no difference of opinion how to advance investment and develop business. But the political stability issue remains the obstacle as BNP has already warned it may intensify agitation after the Eid-ul-Fitr to unseat the government which is ‘illegal’ in the eyes of the opposition because of the flawed election.
It suggests that economic development and progress in business front is equally tied to political stability and social harmony of the nation. Bangladesh economy is poised to achieve higher growth and become a middle income nation. So a peaceful political environment is all that it requires to moving ahead. The government and the opposition must move to that direction.
Source: Weekly Holiday
