The government is working on a policy to allow local entrepreneurs to set up business ventures abroad, commerce minister Faruk Khan told a businessmen gathering on Monday.
He asked the businessmen to put forward their suggestions to help the government to formulate an effective foreign investment policy for Bangladeshi entrepreneurs.
‘The government is thinking of allowing local entrepreneurs to set up business ventures abroad, and we have started to prepare a policy framework in this regard,’ said Faruk Khan at the ceremony for distributing CIP (Commercially Important Person) cards to selected exporters.
Organised by the Export Promotion Bureau, the ceremony was also addressed by commerce secretary Golam Hossian, Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s president AK Azad and SAARC Chamber’s president Annisul Huq.
Faruk told the audience that prime minister had directed the concerned ministries to frame a prudent policy to facilitate Bangladeshi entrepreneurs go abroad to set up business concerns.
‘The government has realised that the local entrepreneurs and exporters have gained the capacity to compete in the global market and set up businesses abroad,’ said the minister.
Bangladeshi exporters and entrepreneurs have for years been complaining vociferously because the closed-door foreign exchange remittance policy of the government has prevented them from taking capital out of the country.
The businessmen said that they need money aboard for establishing their supply chain and market promotion.
Being a top player in the global market of apparels, Bangladesh has a $16 billion-plus export industry but local exporters remain merely suppliers as they are not encouraged to set up their own shops abroad.
Moreover, many companies have plans for setting up manufacturing plants abroad as they have ready markets there.
In 2004, a Dutch business researcher found that Bangladeshi banks, construction firms, frozen food processors and ready-made garment manufacturers had concrete plans for operating business concerns overseas.
David Frans, a teacher of Erasmus University Rotterdam, interviewed the CEOs of more than a hundred big local companies and found that at least one out of every seven of them wanted to have some kind of investment abroad.
Some 23 CIPs received their cards from the commerce minister, which will ensure that they get certain privileges in airports, hospitals and government offices.
The CIPs were selected from exporters of garments and other commodities.
-New Age, Tue, 19/10/2010
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