‘Bangladesh needs to reform regulatory markets, infrastructure governance’

Bangladesh is recently thriving on many infrastructure projects such as Padma Bridge, but question remains about their performance and post evaluation, according to a report of the Global Infrastructure Hub (GI Hub).

The report said the country has recently improved its investment activity as it saw an increase in both the value of public-private partnership (PPP) deals closed over the last five years and public infrastructure investment.

Moreover, the country performed relatively well in cost to start a business, financial stability, and gross government debt.

But the report suggested that Bangladesh could reform its regulatory markets, permits and infrastructure governance to continue improving the quality of its investment. 

The GI Hub on Tuesday released the report named "InfraCompass 2020" to assist countries to set their infrastructure policies on the right track that can lead to better infrastructure investment.    

The report ranked 76 countries' performance based on eight drivers of infrastructure quality – governance, regulatory framework, permits, planning, procurement, activity, financial markets and funding capacity. 

Each driver's ranking is based on the assessment of a total of 41 metrices with the highest possible score of 100.

Bangladesh lagged in many significant metrices in the InfraCompass 2020, such as private infrastructure investment ability and willingness, procurement duration, property registration and construction permit. The scores in these metrices are below or just above 10 out of 100.

The country did not do post-completion reviews of infrastructure projects. So, it is hard to identify the achievement of the objectives of the projects. This is the first metric of the governance driver where the country performed poorly.

Scope for improvement

Bangladesh has the opportunity to improve its infrastructure plan and transparency, the report said.  

The country is yet to have a national or subnational infrastructure plan. It did not publish an infrastructure pipeline project.

By excelling in these areas, the country could highlight infrastructural challenges, opportunities, perspectives and confirmed infrastructure activity.

Lagging in South Asia

The report ranked another two countries from South Asia – India and Pakistan. In most drivers, both countries did better than Bangladesh. 

The report addressed Pakistan as the most improved country in activity drivers, as it improved 45 notches.

On the other hand, India was the most improved country in governance as well as showed a notable improvement in financial activity.

Bangladesh improved in two drivers – activity (15 notches) and procurement (2 notches).