Make investment in Bangladesh: PM Hasina urges Indian businesses

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, now on a two-day state visit to India, has invited Indian businesses to come up with investments in Bangladesh.

"You (Indian business people) come to Bangladesh and make investments," she said while chief executive officers (CEOs) of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) paid a courtesy call on her at her place of residence in New Delhi on Friday (21 June).

Briefing reporters on the meeting, Prime Minister's private industry and investment affairs adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman said the prime minister welcomes Indian businesses to invest in Bangladesh.

"The prime minister always says neighbours come first and she priorities all the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh for the trade, business and investment," he said.

Mentioning that Bangladesh is developing 100 special economic zones,  Hasina told the CEOs that they can avail the facilities and invest there.

The CEOs attending the meeting also want to make investment in Bangladesh and do business with Bangladesh.

Salman said that those who are running businesses with Bangladesh are also keen to expand their activities in the country.

The CEOs from the CII side told the premier that they in collaboration with FBCCI want to work in various sectors in Bangladesh.

In this regard, they also laid emphasis on finding ways to work jointly, especially in the agriculture, IT and logistics sectors.

They highlighted their successes in different sectors in India, especially the IT sector and wanted to replicate those successes in Bangladesh to boost business.

Bangladeshi business people also talked about business cases in Bangladesh highlighting the opportunities prevailing in the country.

The CEOs also raised some issues regarding non-tariff barriers, and regarding this, Salman said that they (CII) were asked to tell their government to ease this process.

Prime Minister's private industry and investment adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman, Ambassador-at-large Mohammad Ziauddin, State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister for Commerce Minister Ahasanul Islam Titu, Principal Secretary M Tofazzel Hossain Miah, Senior Secretary of Foreign Ministry Masud Bin Momen, Bangladesh High Commissioner Md Mustafizur Rahman, Awami League Presidium Member Kazi Zafarullah, among others, were present.

FBCCI President Mahbubul Alam, Nitol Niloy Group Chairman Abdul Matlub Ahmad, Pran RFL Group Chairman Ahsan Khan Chowdhury and some other Bangladeshi businessmen also participated in the meeting. 

Besides, Chairman and Managing Director of ITC Limited Sanjiv Puri, Director General of CII Chandrajit Banerjee, Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited Shobana Kamineni, Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, CEO of Dabur India Limited Mohit Malhotra, Managing Director of Amrit Cement Limited Pradeep Kumar Bagla, CEO (Energy) of Adani Power Limited Deepak Amitabh, Executive Director and COO of Saankhya Labs Vishwakumara Kayargadde, CTO and Founder of Tejas Networks Limited (Tata group company) Dr Kumar Sivarajan, Deputy Director General of CII Marut Sen Gupta, among others, were present.