News Report Bangladesh has a target of reaching double-digit rank below 100th position from 176th position in the World Bank’s ranking of the ease of doing business within next five years, said Kazi M Aminul Islam, executive chairman of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA). He was speaking at a press conference at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel on Sunday. ‘The government of Bangladesh has undertaken a systematic initiative to improve the investment climate of the country. A key step is to enhance our service delivery at various agency-levels in line of doing business indicators and improve Bangladesh’s position in global ranking. Bangladesh targets to reach a double-digit rank (below 100) by 2021,’ said Kazi M Aminul Islam. With this objective, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved a plan of action and formation of national steering committee on ease of doing business in order to oversee the implementation of the plan, said Kazi M Aminul Islam. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also set a target to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041, said Kazi M Aminul Islam. Kazi M Aminul Islam is a former Alternate Executive Director to The World Bank Group. Principal Coordinator of SDG Affairs, Prime Minister’s office, Abul Kalam Azad said the government has planned to develop 100 economic zones in different parts of the country to attract foreign direct investment into the country. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has constituted the Private Sector Development Policy Coordination Committee for developing private sector, Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority for consolidating industrialisation. ‘We have set up PPP office for infrastructure development and drafted time-befitting industrial and export polices for public and private investment along with initiatives to ensure infrastructure facilities,’ said Abul Kalam Azad, also former principal secretary to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He said the present government has been implementing massive programmes to attract foreign investment. ‘We are providing lucrative incentives to attract foreign investment … we have taken steps to build 100 Special Economic Zones across the country to attract domestic and foreign investment,’ he said. The government has taken up various steps to develop a high-tech park on 355 acres of land is being constructed at Kaliakoir with a target of employing 10 lakh people in the IT sector by 2021 and exporting goods of 5 billion dollars a year. Bangladesh has been working with a far-reaching goal to ameliorate its standings on various indexes like Cost of Doing Business Index of World Bank, Global Competitive Index of World Economic Forum, UN Human Development Index, Global Innovation Index and Logistics Performance Index aimed at turning Bangladesh into a developed economy. Bangladesh would secure recognition of a poverty-free country by 2030. ‘To fulfil this target, the present government is continuing its support for increasing investment, creation of employment opportunity and improvement of business environment, reduction of cost of doing business and setting up of priority-based industries,’ he said. The present government after assuming office in 2009 began implementation of vision 2021 and managed to lower the poverty rate to 22.4 per cent in 2015 from 40 per cent in 2005. The per capita income rose to $1466 and Bangladesh earned a GDP growth above 6 per cent over the last several years and 7.11 per cent growth last year. ‘The export earnings rose to over $34 billion in 2015-16 from a mere $10.5 billion in 2005-06, while the foreign currency reserve stands at $32 billion,’ she said, adding 90 per cent of the country’s development project fund comes from internal resources. Bangladesh moved two positions up to 176 in the World Bank’s ranking of the ease of doing business last year. Bangladesh’s distance to frontier (DTF) score, which used to compile the rankings in the Doing Business report, stood at 40.84 percent in the 2017 report, up from 40.68 percent a year ago. Only Afghanistan (183) among the eight South Asian countries came in lower than Bangladesh in the report, “Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All”, which was released recently. Bhutan topped the ranking (73) in South Asia, followed by Nepal (107), Sri Lanka (110), India (130), Maldives (135), and Pakistan (144).
