BIS-2025 wraps up: Investment Summit highlights country’s huge business potentials
Muhammad Ayub Ali :
The four-day Bangladesh Investment Summit (BIS)-2025 ended on Thursday, focusing on enormous potentials of starting business in the country by the foreign investors and, creating a foreign investment pipeline.
A total of five memorandum of understandings (MoUs) were signed during the summit, including four on the health sector and another between Quest Water Global Inc and BIDA.
For the first time in the history of Bangladesh, renowned investors from a record 40 countries including the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, UAE and the country’s top business executives and policymakers have participated in the event.
The participants in the summit also include many investors from world-renowned brands Inditex Group, a Spanish multinational clothing company, DP World, a multinational logistics company based in Dubai, Geodarno, Hong Kong based apparel and accessories, and Exceler Energy.
In the meantime, top policymakers from famous investment companies from different countries have expressed interest in investing in Bangladesh.
How much investment till now
A foreign investment pipeline has been established through this year’s investment summit and continuous communication
will be made with the companies which have proposed or promised to invest, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (Bida) Head of Business Development Nahian Rahman Rochi has said.
“We had 550 registrations here, out of which about 400-450 were foreign representatives. In some cases, two representatives have come. We will inform you about the complete investment and investor information later,” he added.
Repelling to a query, Nahian said that Investors usually take 18 to 24 months to invest; we will communicate with them on an individual institution basis.
Handa Industries Limited, a renowned china-based apparel manufacturing company, will invest US150 million in Bangladesh.
They will invest $100 million in textile and dying sectors under economic zone and $50 million in garments industry under export processing zone.
This will create jobs for about 15,000 people.
The Chinese investors expressed their keen interest to invest in Bangladesh. Therefore, 200 investors will soon come to Bangladesh to encourage investment here,” he said.
New Development Bank (NDB) will invest US$ 1 billion in Bangladesh in the next one year.
Interest sectors of the investors
Foreign businesses attending the investment summit have shown interest in the consumer market, textiles, pharma, light engineering, renewable energy, e-commerce and agro-processing sectors.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Ministry of Commerce, International Labour Organization (ILO), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) inked Letter of Intent (LoI) for promoting trade and investment for sustainable and inclusive growth.
Under this Lol, BIDA, Ministry of Commerce, ILO and UNDP have become the “partners” or “parties” agree to develop a trade and investment ecosystem for sustainable and inclusive growth.
Under the ILO and UNDP partner, Bangladesh will try to develop the labor right because without ensuring labor right it is impossible to attract the good investors.
Kihak Sung, Chairman of Youngone Corporation and a pioneer in Bangladesh’s readymade garments (RMG) and textile sectors, who first came to the country in the mid-1990s, was honoured with honorary citizenship on Wednesday for his outstanding contributions to the industry and Bangladesh economy.
The conferences in previous years have been mainly focused on seminars and workshops.
Investors who came to the conference wanted to discuss with potential partners or B2B (business-to-business) and G2G (business-to-government). Some seminars and discussions have been organized at the conference, but the emphasis has been put on creating opportunities for investors to have ‘B2B’ and ‘G2G’ discussions.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) honored Fabric Lagbe Ltd (innovation category), bkash (foreign investment category), Square Pharmaceutical (local company) and Walton have awarded Excellence in Investment Award-2025′ for their significant contribution to the country’s economy and attracting foreign direct investment. The Chief Adviser handed over the awards.
The Excellence in Investment Award will continue in the future to attract investment in building the nation.