Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina speaks at a luncheon hosted by Business Council for International Understanding at Hotel Grand Hyatt in New York on Thursday. PMO Photo New York: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday called upon the US investors to invest in Bangladesh in a greater way to tap the potentials the country has in various sectors and thus take the relations between the two countries to a newer height, reports UNB. “As we aspire to become a middle-income country by 2021, I call upon US investors to do more, invest more, benefit more from Bangladesh, create new business partnerships to take Bangladesh-US relations to a newer height,” she said. Hasina was addressing a luncheon hosted by American Chamber and American Business Council at Hotel Grand Hyatt. Distinguished members of Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) and Distinguished Members of Bangladesh Business Delegation were present. Mentioning that the current US investment of US$ 331 million in Bangladesh is much below its potential, she said there are some investments slowly building up in financial sectors apart from energy and power sectors. “Yet, we need more diverse group of US investors to take advantage of Bangladesh’s liberal investment policy.” She said her government has leapfrogged the liberal fiscal incentives for foreign investors, including a most generous tax holiday, concessionary duty on import of machinery, remittance of royalty, 100 percent foreign equity, unrestricted exit policy, a full repatriation facility of dividend and capital on exit and many more. “We’ve created 7 Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), whereby foreign private companies can take lease of industrial land and set up labour intensive industry. We’ve an over 80-million young energetic workforce available for industrial recruitment as workers. We also have 160 million consumers as your market,” she added. Apart from power and energy sector, the Prime Minister said her government is keen on increasing FDI in its booming shipbuilding and recycling sectors, chemical fertilizers, automobile and light engineering, agro-processing, pharmaceuticals, ceramic, plastic and jute goods, ICT, marine resource extraction, tourism, medical equipment and telecommunication. The government is also giving more thrust on establishment of knowledge based hi-tech industries. She went on saying, “We’ve facilitated US companies such as the AES to be the pioneer of foreign private investment in the power and energy sector in Bangladesh. They launched the Haripur and Meghnaghat power plants and boosted the investment numbers by manifolds. During the past five years, the Prime Minister said her government pursued every possible avenue to enhance US direct investment in Bangladesh. From a meager US$ 36.34 million in 2009, in two years time in 2011, Bangladesh secured US$ 117.74 million worth of US investment. Between 2009 and 2013 total US investments in Bangladesh increased to the tune of US $ 331.35 million. In 2014, the Prime Minister noted that the US still stands to be the second largest Foreign Direct Investor in Bangladesh. And yet this is still low considering its global investment scales. “I would personally want to see these numbers go past the billion-dollar mark within the next three years.” During her second tenure in office, Hasina said, her government successfully resolved its maritime boundary disputes with Myanmar and India. “We’re now base-free for offshore energy and Blue Ocean marine resources exploration. This time too, among others, we have appointed two major US companies through competitive processes.” The other testament to the mutually beneficial relations is the bilateral trade statistics. As of 2014, the United States remains Bangladesh’s single largest export destination, mostly the RMG, Hasina told her audience. And that too after Bangladesh pays a remarkably high tariff at the US ports ranging between 8 and 32 percent. Last year, Bangladesh exported US$5.2 billion worth of apparels to the US while the US earned US$ 832 millions in duties and taxes paid by Bangladesh. “Imagine if our products had a duty-free quota free access to the US ports. This would generate millions of dollars surplus for US retailers. They could in turn enhance money paid to the Bangladeshi Manufacturers. And our RMG manufactures could then spend more money in the welfare of the workers,” she said. Briefly describing the country’s labour standards, the Prime Minister said during the last one year, her government has taken significant reforms to improve wages, health, safety and working condition of the RMG workers and their wage hike. Meanwhile, she said, the year 2013 has ushered in a new era of economic cooperation between the two countries as the government has signed the Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum Agreement (TICFA). In the face of a steep global recession, the Prime Minister noted that Bangladesh economy grew at 6.2 percent during the past 5 years, Over the last decade poverty reduced poverty from 57 percent to under-25 percent, GDP per capita has increased by 65 percent, inflation has been reigned in from a double digit figure to only 7.5 percent. Nearly 10 million jobs have been created both at home and overseas. Besides, she said, export earnings tripled from $10.53 billion to over $ 30.5 billion, Remittance flow also tripled for US$ 5 billion to US$ 14.5 billion, Foreign currency reserve hit the 20 billion club and now stands at more than US$ 22 billion.
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