Bangladesh gears up to establish joint business council with Saudi Arabia

Bangladesh is set to welcome a high-level Saudi delegation to the Bangladesh Business Summit over the weekend amid plans to establish a joint business council, said the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FBCCI) on Thursday (9 March).

The Bangladesh Business Summit 2023 is an international trade and investment promotion event hosted by the FBCCI reports Arab Times.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will open the conference, which will take place in Dhaka on 11-13 March, and will include 200 delegates from all over the world.

Seven foreign ministers will attend, with Saudi Commerce Minister Majid bin Abdullah Al-Qasabi invited as one of the event's key guests.

"Saudi Arabia is very interested in investing in Bangladesh, especially in the energy and infrastructure sector. The Saudi commerce minister will be attending the summit along with 23 government officials," FBCCI President Jashim Uddin said.

"With this Saudi delegation, more than 35 Saudi businessmen from different sectors will join in the summit," he added.

He said that several memoranda are expected to be signed during the summit with the Saudi side, including the formation of a bilateral business council, and cooperation between the operator of the Kingdom's new flagship container terminal in Jeddah and Chattogram Port.

"They are very interested in investing in Bangladesh. A few MoUs will be signed with them. The formation of the Bangladesh-Saudi Business Council will be announced here during the summit in the presence of the Saudi minister. Apart from plenary sessions and parallel sessions, there will be a separate session with the Saudi business delegation as a part of the side event," the FBCCI president further said.

"Red Sea Gateway Terminal will sign an MoU with our Chattogram Port authorities for building infrastructure over there. They are also interested in investing in the (Bangladeshi) solar energy sector."

Bangladesh is one of the world's fastest-growing economies and is expected to be the 25th largest by 2035. In the past decade, the country's economy has grown from $50 billion to $470 billion.

Having laid out its grand vision to become an upper-middle-income country in the next 10 years and a developed country by 2041, the South Asian nation is now seeking to expand its formal sector by enhancing trade and investment.

"We have around 70 percent of the population in working age. We want to make this population our human capital. For this, we need investment and industrialization. To build a smart Bangladesh, we need local investment as well as foreign investment," Uddin said.

"According to the HSBC bank, Bangladesh will be the ninth-largest consumer market soon. This market of 170 million people is very lucrative to foreign investors also."