This week’s state visit by President Abdul Hamid to Vietnam at the invitation of his Vietnamese counterpart Truong Tan Sang, provides an invaluable opportunity to strengthen the friendly relations between our two nations. We hope the visit will lead to good progress in building new cultural and people to people ties, and increasing co-operation on trade and investment. Vietnam’s successes in improving its infrastructure are helping to attract record levels of overseas investment, with FDI topping $24 billion last year, the second biggest in Asia after China, compared to just $1.6bn in Bangladesh. Bangladesh should strive to emulate Vietnam’s successes in building up its infrastructure and economy. With the centre of gravity of the global economy moving towards Asia, and the strong trend of more companies, particularly from China, looking to outsource manufacturing jobs, both our nations stand to gain by making our economies more business-friendly and conducive to investment. On present trends, particularly with its participation in the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, Vietnam is in a strong position to overtake Bangladesh in the value of its garment exports. The government needs to give more priority now to helping the RMG sector develop so that it can continue to grow the exports and jobs that are so important to our economy. For Bangladesh to live up to its potential, the government needs to cut red tape and uphold the rule of law to create a more business-friendly environment. It also needs to considerably increase investment in infrastructure, particularly in relation to energy and transport, and work to improve skills and productivity to allow for more higher-value jobs to be created. New fiscal and tax incentives and measures such as the RMG bank proposed by the planning minister can help supply the finance which export sectors need to build their competitive advantage. The RMG sector has achieved much in the past two decades. There is no reason why, with a more business-friendly environment and government help to secure more land on which new factories can be built, it cannot seek to move up the value chain and create valuable new export jobs.
