Salman Fazlur Rahman, MP, Private Industry and Investment Adviser to the Prime Minister, spoke at the launching event of the diagnostic report titled “Agile Regulatory Delivery for Improved Investment Competitiveness: Current State and Policy Options.” Highlighting the World Bank’s recent recognition of Bangladesh as one of the top 20 performers in its upcoming Ease of Doing Business Ranking, he hoped for better performance in next year’s ranking. “Despite the fact that we made considerable improvements, the survey of the potential beneficiaries revealed that they did not experience the expected benefits. That is why we now focus on how the public and potential beneficiaries get the advantage in real.”

He also said that the government was extremely serious about ensuring ease of doing business in the country. “Although the senior officials are perfectly on board, getting the mid and low-level employees to comply with the reforms is the challenge,” he said. The IFC and the government were planning to hold workshops for mid and low-level bureaucrats to make them adapt to the change. Rahman revealed that the government was working to change the Company Act Law and the Bankruptcy Law to ensure compatibility with the global standards, thus, making significant improvement in the ease of doing business ranking. “While amending laws is a time-consuming process, we aim to get it done by April 2020, the cut-off date for next year’s ranking,” he said. “We hope to make significant improvements after amending the laws.”

Explaining other initiatives of the government, he mentioned that the World Bank’s consultants responsible for significant improvements in countries like India will also help in Bangladesh’s efforts. He appreciated the World Bank, IFC and the authors of the report, which, he said, will help the government as a roadmap.

In response to a question from the audience, Rahman trashed the idea that the investment target set by the government was ambitious. “If ten years ago somebody had told me that we would quadruple our budget, triple the GDP and increase the growth rate to 8.1, I wouldn’t have believed it. I also would have called it ambitious.” Rahman said the Matarbari and Mirsarai Economic Zones alone would sufficiently accommodate the investment that Bangladesh wants.  Due to density of population, the government encourages prospective investors to use the SEZs to set up industry, rather than separately buying lands for setting up factories, he said.