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Bangladesh has liberal investment policy: PPP CEO Sultana Afroz

  • Diplomatic Correspondent
  • 4 December, 2020 12:00 AM
  • Print news
Bangladesh has liberal investment policy: PPP CEO Sultana Afroz
Public Private Partnership (PPP) CEO Sultana Afroz on Thursday addresses the 11th International Infrastructure Investment and Construction Forum (IIICF) Organising Committee meeting at Macao in China on Thursday.

Bangladesh has most liberal investment policy in South Asia as it introduced a bunch of favorable policies for foreign investment, including protection of foreign investment, tax holiday and unrestricted exit policy.

CEO of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Sultana Afroz yesterday disclosed it while addressing at the 11th International Infrastructure Investment and Construction Forum (IIICF) Organising Committee meeting held in Macao, China.              

IIICF Organizing Committee, China International Contractors Association and Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute organized the event.

Highlighting Bangladesh’s tremendous economic success amid COVID pandemic, Sultana Afroz said Bangladesh’s GDP growth surged seven percent for the last ten years, reaching 8.12 percent in the fiscal year 2018-2019.

She said Bangladesh has achieved a growth rate of 5.2 percent in the last fiscal year 2019-20 despite coronavirus pandemic.

She also noted that Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserve has hit a record height of US$37.18 billion last July.

“From an aid recipient, Bangladesh has evolved into an investment destination under the supreme leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,” she said.

The Secretary and CEO of PPP reiterated that the incentives the Government of Bangladesh offers to the PPP projects included exemption from import duty of capital machinery, exemption for stamp duty and registration fee, Viability Gap Financing (VGF), etc.

Currently, she said the PPP Authority is supporting 79 PPP projects covering health, transport, IT, civil accommodation, shipping, social infrastructure, food and tourism sectors.

“Aside from these ongoing projects, PPP Authority has so far signed a memorandum of understandings for jointly implementing PPP Projects through Government to Government Partnership with Japan, Singapore, UAE and Korea.”

Sultana Afroz said, “The Chinese contractors can cover the designing, manufacturing and shipping parts of the process while the implementation can be taken care of by our local subcontractors under Chinese supervisors' guidance. This could be done to prevent man-hours from being wasted.”