Bangladesh's Corporate World

Bangladesh needs to highlight the shining examples of foreign companies that have achieved success after setting up businesses here, said a delegation of American investment management firm T Rowe Price Group Inc. The delegation, led by Johannes Loefstrand, portfolio manager of Frontier Markets Equity Fund, suggested successful utilisation of special economic zones and attracting foreign companies there. The recommendations came after the delegation met with officials of the international trade, investment and ICT division at the foreign ministry, said a press release. The delegation enquired about the steps taken for attracting more foreign investment, initiatives for increasing exports, activities and successes of economic zones and progress in digitalisation in Bangladesh. Syed Muntasir Mamun, the division's director general, highlighted Bangladesh's geographical position between northeastern India and south and east Asia. He cited the increasing participation of women in th

Political stability has been the key driver to Bangladesh's economic success, said Prime Minister's private industry and investment adviser Salman F Rahman at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The real growth of Bangladesh has taken place for the last 14 to 15 years under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Political stability has been the primary key to Bangladesh's economic success story", said Rahman.   While explaining the other keys to economic success, he elaborated on an example and said, "Take the electricity crisis; when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina initially took the power 14 years ago, the country was grappling with suffocating power outages. Electricity generation was only 4,000 megawatts at the time; currently, it is about 25,000 megawatts. Bangladesh now has power in every household. However, we now create more electricity than we require at night and are on the verge of eliminating all sorts of power shortages."