Supporting Growth in Bangladesh through New Economic Zones

DHAKA, March 5(NsNewsWire) — Economic Zones are a strategic instrument for attracting domestic and foreign investment, creating jobs and accelerating growth. The World Bank, together with UK-DFID and IFC, is supporting the Government to develop Economic Zones through the Private Sector Development Support Project (PSDSP). The PSDSP also provides support to the Jobs and Competitiveness Task Force which was established by the Prime Minister in March 2013. The Task Force decided in a meeting on February 5 in the Prime Minister’s Office to create a Special Action Team to shore up the capacity of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) and to add three members to the Task Force from the ministries of Commerce, Finance, and Industry.

Although delayed, the PSDSP has progressed in some key areas. For its pipeline of possible economic zone projects, BEZA has nearly completed the feasibility studies for three of the sites: Sherpur in Sylhet and Mirershorai and Anowara in Chittagong. The studies will be used as a tool for attracting private zone developers to those sites, so BEZA is now working on developing a marketing strategy for using these studies. A proposed economic zone in Mongla requires the land for the site to be transferred to BEZA, for which the organization is urgently seeking a de-notification of the zoning from the municipality.

The Hi-Tech Park Authority (HTPA) is in the process of re-tendering the development of the Kaliakor Hi-Tech Park. In the meantime it continues to construct infrastructure for the project such as the perimeter and internal road system which are projected to be completed by July of this year. It is also preparing Jessore IT Park bids for the construction of the multi-tenanted building for private management and a long list of potential projects in Khula, Sylhet, and Chittagong.

Both the HTPA and BEZA are in the final stages of hiring transaction advisors to coordinate the entire process of preparing the tenders for the zone projects in their pipeline. This will serve to streamline the process of developing zones for both organizations.

The Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) is spearheading a Green Zone initiative under the PSDSP, measuring the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission baseline in BEPZA’s EPZs and converting its street lighting to solar, among other GHG reduction strategies.

Finally, under the Project 25 C-Level IT/ITES executives of Bangladesh Association of Software & Information Services (BASIS) member companies received Executive training in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong School of Business in December 2013. The Bangladesh Institute of Technology and Management (BITM) has enhanced its training capability by fitting-out two labs for technical training and is planning on training 700 professionals during the coming 6 months. Universities and other training institutions will also provide training under the PSDSP.

All these activities support the immediate primary goal of the PSDSP: to grant a license to at least one private developer of an economic zone. It is expected that this will encourage other developers to do the same and will allow Bangladesh to create millions of jobs over the next decade.

Key activities for the coming months will be obtaining approval for a Development Project Proforma (DPP) to allow BEZA to construct last-mile infrastructure for zones and the final approval for the EZ Rules under the EZ Act 2010.