MM Rahmatullah: Chowdhury Ashiq Mahmud, Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), has said that Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao will visit Bangladesh next month with 200 investors to invest in Bangladesh.
He gave this information at a press conference organized to summarize the overall activities at the end of the third day of the investment summit on Wednesday.
The Chinese Commerce Secretary has written to me. They will visit Bangladesh next month with about 200 investors, including their Commerce Minister. They want to invest in Bangladesh. They want us to provide comprehensive information on Bangladesh’s investment as we do today. If we can support them, they will be able to make decisions on investment quickly.
The BIDA Executive Chairman also said that the main objective of this investment summit is to turn the negative narrative that has been going on about Bangladesh for a long time into a positive one. I sat with the German team today. 80 to 90 percent of their team members are visiting Bangladesh for the first time. We asked them what else we should do to bring German investment to Bangladesh.
The BIDA executive chairman also said that a memorandum of understanding has been signed with the Chinese company Honda for an investment of 150 million US dollars.
He also said that the businessmen who came to the conference are interested in investing in labor-intensive industries. They want to invest in various sectors including the textile and garment industry, pharmaceutical industry, as well as to capture the consumer market of Bangladesh.
In response to a question, Chowdhury Ashiq said, we have plans to invest in the defense industry. In principle, we think that some transplants need to be done in the military for technological development.
He also said, we do not need to make tanks, we do not need to make spaceships, fighter jets. We can make advanced radios, tank axles, small bullets and small arms, etc. on a limited scale. But there is a lot of demand for these too.
The BIDA executive chairman said, we are working with the army, navy and air force. One of our big initiatives is to find investors from outside who will agree to come to Bangladesh through technology transfer. We will promise to buy from them, as well as give them the opportunity to export. We will offer something in the concept of a military economic zone like an economic zone. Chowdhury Ashiq Mahmud Bin Harun said, but it is a long road. To make a military economic zone, policies have to be made there. There are many such issues including security policy, digital data policy, IT rights, we have to solve them and move forward. Work has started on these.
