Chinese commerce minister to visit Bangladesh next month with 200 investors: Bida chairman

China's Commerce Minister Wang Wentao is set to visit Bangladesh next month along with 200 investors to encourage investment in Bangladesh, Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun, executive chairman of Bida and Beza, announced today (9 April).

He made the announcement in response to a question at a press conference on the overall activities at the end of the third day of the Bangladesh Investment Summit 2025 at InterContinental Dhaka in the capital.

"China's commerce secretary has written to me. He will come to Bangladesh next month with their commerce minister and about 200 investors," Ashik said.

"They want to invest in Bangladesh. They want us to provide comprehensive investment information about Bangladesh, as we did today. If we can support them, they will be able to make investment decisions quickly," said Ashik, who has been a driving force in attracting foreign investors to Bangladesh recently. 

Speaking about the Investment Summit, the Bida chairman said the main objective of this summit is to turn the negative narrative of Bangladesh that has been going on for so long into a positive one.

"Today, I sat with the German team. About 80%-90% members of their team came to Bangladesh for the first time. I asked them what else we should do to bring German investment to Bangladesh. They all said we need to bring more German investors to Bangladesh," he said.

He also revealed that a $150 million investment agreement has already been signed with China's Honda Company.

"So, we need to bring them to Bangladesh consistently. There is no need for such a big investment conference. It would be better if we could identify specific countries and hold meetings with them to bring investment," he noted.

The businessmen who came to the Bangladesh Investment Summit are interested in investing in labour-intensive industries, Ashik also said.

"They want to invest in the textile and garment, pharmaceuticals, and line engineering sectors to capture the consumer market in Bangladesh," he added.

In response to a question, Ashik said, "We have plans to invest in the defense industry. In principle, we think that some transplants are needed in the military for technological development. The Bangladesh Ordnance Factory that we have already has the skills. We can build on that and manufacture military equipment just as we told the story of the manufacturing hub in the classic commercial sector, for AMG, for leather."

He further said, "We don't need to build tanks, we don't need to build spaceships, we don't need to build fighter jets. We need limited to small-scale products like advanced radios, tank axles, small bullets and small arms, etc. There is a lot of demand for these, too."

The Bida chairman said they are working with the Bangladesh Army and the Bangladesh Navy.

"One of our big initiatives is to find investors from outside who will be willing to come to Bangladesh through technology transfer. We will promise to buy from their work, as well as give them the opportunity to export. We will make some offers on the concept of a military economic zone, like an economic zone," he said.

He noted that the process for the military economic zone will be a long one, but work on this has already started.

"To create a military economic zone, we need to formulate policies. There are many issues like security policy, digital data policy, IT rights, which we need to resolve and move forward. Work has started on these," he said.