Bangladesh Discusses FDI Opportunities with Singapore

Bangladesh has sought closer trade and investment relations with Singapore, noting that Bangladesh is expected to recover more rapidly than other countries from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, reports UNB.

"Even with the ongoing crisis, the country is expected to recover faster than any other peer economies," said Prime Minister's Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman F Rahman.

He said Bangladesh has been exhibiting a strong economic growth prior to the pandemic.

Salman F Rahman made a remark when addressing a webinar titled "Business Opportunities and Investment Insights in Bangladesh."

GlobalConnect@SBF, an initiative of the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) together with Enterprise Singapore, Bangladesh High Commission in Singapore, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Public-Private Sector Federation (PPPA) and FBCCI organized the webinar.

The webinar provided an summary of Bangladesh's economic landscape, recent trends and investment prospects available in Bangladesh, and the post-COVID-19 "new normal" transition.

Md Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh High Commissioner to Singapore and Prasoon Mukherjee, Vice Chairman of SBF South-Asia Business also delivered speeches during the webinar, where Sheikh Fazle Fahim, the President of FBCCI, moderated the Public Sector Plenary session.

Recalling the coordinated and comprehensive efforts by the government, FBCCI President Sheikh Fazle Fahim said the country’s economy is demonstrating a recovery trend with positive growth in July 2020 in trade -both export and import, remittance and foreign reserve.

“Despite the COVID 19 crisis, we have been able to post a GDP growth of 5.24 percent, remittance growth of 5.4 percent and forex reserve growth of 10 percent in FY19-20,” he added.

Ensuring Bangladesh's future investors as a viable choice, Sheik Fazle Fahim said, "With concerted and systematic efforts, we are confident in our economy."

Md Sirazul Islam, Executive Chairman of BIDA, outlined a range of future sectors such as agro-processing, light-engineering and investment technology.

"We have greatly enhanced the ease of business in Bangladesh with the launch of our One-Stop Service (OSS) for companies, offering more than a hundred facilities from a broad variety of agencies," he said.

Ariful Houqe, Director of BIDA; Dr Masrur Reaz, Chairman of Policy Exchange, Samuel Lee, Assistant Vice President PSA Marine; Syed Nasim Manzur, Director of Apex Group; Syed Farhad Ahmed, Managing Director and CEO of Aamra companies, among others, presented insightful information of the opportunities of FDI for the economy of Singapore in Bangladesh.