BIDA chief urges expatriate Bangladeshis to invest back home, offers full cooperation

BIDA chief urges expatriate Bangladeshis
to invest back home, offers full
cooperation

The head of the investment promoting agency
has implored the non-resident Bangladeshis
to invest back in a new Bangladesh and
pledged full cooperation.
“The Bangladesh you left behind has changed.
It’s a different Bangladesh,” Executive
Chairman of the Bangladesh Investment
Development Authority or BIDA Kazi M Aminul
Islam said on Wednesday.
“We will help you in completing different types
of formalities and processes [while investing in
Bangladesh]. We will cooperate with you fully,”
he said in Tokyo before a Bangladeshi
business group.
Aminul Islam is leading a Bangladesh
delegation drawn from the government and
private sector to Japan to promote the
country before the investors in Osaka and
Tokyo.
After Osaka meeting on Tuesday, he will speak
with the Tokyo business leaders on Thursday.
On Wednesday night, the Bangladesh Chamber
of Commerce and Industry in Japan hosted a
dinner in his honour at a local hotel where he
tried to allay fears of the NRBs.
They experience smooth business processes in
countries like Japan but when the expats
sometimes dare to invest back in Bangladesh,
they face difficulties in getting approvals from
government agencies.
The BIDA chief said he has opened a special
cell for the NRBs where they can call anytime
for support. “You can call and also email. We
will respond immediately."
“If you don’t get response, just leave your
name and phone number. We will call you
back.
“What used to take year after year would now
happen at lightning speed. We have this
situation now. We will help you,” Aminul Islam
assured them.
“You just think how you can be involved with
Bangladesh in more ways. There will be a big
change in Bangladesh’s economy in future.
You are businessmen, entrepreneurs. You
think what you can take to Bangladesh from
Japan. Anything you take from Japan would
be part of Bangladesh’s development
process,” he said.
“Japan took a hundred years to be developed.
We will be developed in a quarter of a
century,” he said in reference to Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina’s vision to be a
developed country by 2041.
To encourage them, the BIDA boss cited
example of Managing Director of Energypac
Humayun Rashid who is also part of his
delegation. Rashid returned from the United
States and started business in Bangladesh in