The sweet scent of moolah is bringing the great and the good ( or the rich and the bad if you prefer) to New York city for a conference entitled “Updated Investment Opportunities in Bangladesh.” The Asia Society is holding a panel discussion called “Bangladesh: Untapped Opportunities.” Here is the exciting blurb:
The Word Bank calls it the Bangladesh Paradox. The Bangladesh economy has steadily accelerated in recent years, with growth reaching 7% in 2006. The country scores particularly well on socio-economic indicators. Global banks and multilateral institutions present a highly optimistic outlook: Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch have identified Bangladesh as a key investment opportunity. This impressive growth occurs in a climate of political restructuring. A caretaker government is implementing reforms toward privatizing many state-owned enterprises. The Dhaka Stock Exchange Index is at a 10-year high, up 66 percent this year, making it Asia’s top performer after China. And the stock market is expected to double in size in 2008.
Discover why market-oriented reforms, strong socio-economic indicators and highly favorable demographics are poised to render Bangladesh one of the world’s most exciting investment opportunities.
7 Responses for "Go East, my son"
I’m a foreign investor who started an IT business here last year. The business opportunities are substantial — excellent skilled employees, good spoken English, decent internet connection (when the fiber cable isn’t cut!). But the government bureaucracy is horrible. We expend a huge amount of effort trying to do business here. If the opportunities wouldn’t be so good, I’d be ready to start looking for a government that wants to work with investors.
Tell us more about the difficulties you face.
Here’s just one example…
I’ve recently re-applied for a new work permit. First the office complained that my requested income as managing director/technical lead was too high (similar to an senior software developer salary in America).
Then they said that they need a new security clearance. The agency responsible to give security clearances refuses to re-issue one or send a copy of one from last year, because they said it’s not necessary — they just did one a year ago. We asked whether we can hand-carry the clearance ourselves. They refused.
My family lives with me here in Dhaka. They are needing new visas again Right now, we are needing to get visas for them every three - six months, even though I was given a three year visa from the USA. We applied for the visas six weeks ago.
They still haven’t come. Right now the visa office is saying that they need my new work permit. At the time we applied, my work permit was valid. Of course, by now it has expired because of the problems we are having with having that renewed.
So right now, we are waiting on my work permit and will continue to hassle people until we figure out how to get paperwork moving. In the meantime, my family is without visas, making travel out of the country difficult.
We have faced similar problems again and again and again. Before the caretaker government, we faced corruption (though we have chosen to not pay bribes). Since the new government it’s even harder because everyone is afraid to do anything to help.
I’m excited about the potential here. However, unless the bureaucracy changes, there really isn’t much room for small new business ventures.
Interesting distinction you make concerning what used to happen before the CTG took over. That is what economics predicts - that in the absence of functioning markets you will get corruption to smooth things out. But now markets don’t work that well and the mechanism for ironing out the crinkles , although still very much there, is probably not as routine as it was. Thanks for sharing.
[…] 22, 2008 An investors ordeal Posted by Rumi under Bangladesh, Corruption Interesting but not so surprising conversationat the end of this post by Shafiur. […]
Tuesday, 05 February 2008
A Basis for considering Bangladesh
Mark Kobayashi-Hillary
http://markkobayashihillary.computing.co.uk/2008/02/a-basis-for-con.html
Mark Kobayashi-Hillary writes the ‘Talking Outsourcing’ blog for Computing magazine and he edits the associated ‘Talking Outsourcing’ Podcast on iTunes. Mark is a board member of the UK National Outsourcing Association with special responsibility for offshoring and is a founding member of the British Computer Society working party on offshoring. He is the author of Outsourcing to India: The Offshore Advantage and co-authored Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field (BCS, 2007)
I’m not the kind of person who engages in revenge or sour grapes. I’m generally so laid back that people have been known to check my pulse, but something this week really upset me and without meaning to be disrespectful to the actors involved, I want to get it documented here for others to see.
As you might know from other blog entries, I’m on my way to the Philippines and India soon. I was planning to go straight from India to Bangladesh because the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (Basis) is hosting its annual conference in Dhaka.
It is basically clashing with the Indians and their annual conference, so they might have considered the timing a little better, but I was going to attend the final two days of the conference and was planning to give a keynote speech on Bangladesh competing against other regions.
This wasn’t something I was getting paid for. They were going to cover my flight and hotel expenses, but I wasn’t getting paid to spend several days doing research on Bangladesh and then speaking out on their behalf. They had offered to give me some token cash though if I could encourage some other journalists from the UK to come along – all expenses paid – to see what Bangladesh has to offer for outsourcing.
So I spent some time digging around in my contact book and emailing people, and I got a few people interested in coming out to Dhaka. Then I started chasing them for details of the flights, the agenda, the speakers, etc… I had nothing for the past couple of weeks. Nobody wanted to talk to me. Then on Friday – just about a week before I am leaving for Asia – they sent me an email saying I don’t need to give a speech any longer or invite foreign journalists.
Well, that was a bit upsetting. Not only had I blocked out the time to be in Bangladesh and turned down other work, but I thought that I was doing them a favour by not even asking to get paid for it. All I end up having to do is explain to everyone else I had talked to that the Dhaka trip is off. You don’t even want to hear what the technology correspondent of one of the broadsheets had to say about the way Basis has behaved. It also means that I am stuck in India without a flight home and I’m presently researching my best options – either come straight home or use the opportunity to stop for a couple of days somewhere on the way back from India.
I’m not trying to write this as some form of revenge against Basis, but it’s a statement of fact that it needs to reconsider how it makes the region more attractive. I was at the 36th Independence Day party in Kensington last year and the people from the High Commission explained to me their plans for promoting the hi-tech industry in Bangladesh. It seemed to be that they were going to hire the Barbican centre in London and then ship 30 or so company representatives over from Bangladesh to London to stand there and talk about what they are doing. They had asked me to get some UK companies along. I can remember saying that it was a ridiculous plan and that they should get some people who write about the industry over to Dhaka first, so some positive impression of the place can be seen in the media – then people who are interested will be a lot easier to speak to.
I thought that they had listened to some good – and free – advice, but clearly not.
He was treated shoddily by Basis but I guess the HC has the right to decide on marketing campaigns? I am not entirely sure what Mark’s point is about the HC - perhaps he is just pointing out that what they are doing is inappropriate.
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