Though eight months have passed since an MoU was signed with a Chinese company, the government is yet to receive any response from China for financing the China Economic and Industrial Zone (CEIZ), Chittagong (infrastructural development), said sources at Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) and the Economic Relations Division (ERD). The BEZA signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China Harbour Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) in June 2016 to establish the CEIZ Chittagong with Chinese funding.   
However, the BEZA is yet to receive any response from China regarding the establishment of the economic zone. When BEZA executive director Paban Chowdhury was contacted several times over mobile phone, he did not take the call. What is significant is that a visiting Chinese high-level business delegation has sought “solid efforts” from the government to address the “practical difficulties” their companies are facing in doing business in Bangladesh.
The chairman of China’s Council for Promoting South-South Cooperation, Lyu Xinhua, a former vice-foreign minister, while speaking at a meeting in Dhaka recently, however, did not specify the kind of difficulties Chinese companies face in Bangladesh. Lyu Xinhua said their companies are “very enthusiastic” to invest in Bangladesh. “I was told that the investment environment in Bangladesh is one of the best in Asia,” he said, referring to his meeting with the companies that are already here in Bangladesh. “But we found that companies face various degrees of challenges and difficulties in doing business here,” he said. “The government needs to make solid efforts to address the practical difficulties that our companies face.” A two-member delegation from the finance ministry visited China last week to hold discussions with the Chinese authorities. One of them told The Independent that it would take time to give final touches regarding financing of the projects, as proposed by the Bangladesh government. He said a team of China’s Exim Bank will visit Bangladesh to examine the economic viability of the projects, and then the decision will be finalised. The delegation also submitted list of eight projects, including the China Economic and Industrial Zone Chittagong (USD 280 million), for funding this year.
According to these sources, China is keen to invest roughly USD 4.5 billion in two industrial parks to meet the growing domestic and global demand for Bangladeshi products.
The industrial parks, one on 774 acres in Chittagong and the other on 500 acres in Dhaka, will be situated in two designated special economic zones (SEZs). Earlier, the Chinese ambassador in Dhaka, Ma Mingqiang, had said that many Chinese investors were quite keen to secure places in
the special economic zone. Bangladesh is still ranked among the most competitive in the world in terms of labour costs, and investors want their share of the growing market. In September 2015, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) had approved the proposed Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone, to be set up on 774.25 acres at Anwara, Chittagong, involving Tk. 420.37 crore, exclusively for Chinese investors. The move came after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina proposed such a facility during her visit to China on June 6–11, 2014. The Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) also signed an agreement with the commerce ministry of China during the visit.
The BEZA, under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), was scheduled to implement the project by June 2016. According to the MoU, CHEC will develop the site for the CEIZ on 774 acres of land in Anwara upazila of Chittagong. The proposed site is 39km from Chittagong port, 28km from Chittagong city and 46km from Shah Amanat International Airport, Chittagong. After it is established, the zone would accommodate around 400 factories, which would attract around USD 2 billion worth of Chinese investment within three years. It would also create new jobs for over 1.5 lakh people. The economic zone is a government-to-government (G2G) initiative that aims to develop the Chinese economic and industrial zone in Bangladesh. There are 119 countries across the world have 2,031 such special economic zones in operation. Of those, 436 are in India, 460 in China and around 200 in the Philippines.