PM urges Indian traders to make investment in Bangladesh

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has invited Indian businessmen to make investment in Bangladesh.

She told Indian traders: "You (Indian businessmen) come to Bangladesh and make investment."

She said this when Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) paid a courtesy call on her at her place of residence in Delhi on Friday.

"We welcome you to invest in Bangladesh," Prime Minister's private industry and investment affairs adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman quoted the premier as she saying.

In a media briefing, he told reporters that the Prime Minister always used to say "neighbour comes first" and her priorities all the neighbouring countries of Bangladesh for the trade, business and investment.

Mentioning that Bangladesh is developing 100 special economic zones, Sheikh Hasina told the CEOs that they can avail it and invest there.

The CEOs who attended the meeting also want to make investment in Bangladesh and do business with Bangladesh.

Salman said that those who are running businesses with Bangladesh they are keen to expand their businesses in the country.

The CEOs from the CII side told the premier that they in collaboration with FBCCI want to work in various sectors in Bangladesh.

In this regards, they also laid emphasis on finding the ways to work jointly, especially in agriculture, IT and logistics sectors.

They highlighted their successes in different sectors in India especially IT sector and wanted to replicate those successes in Bangladesh to boost business.

Bangladesh businessmen also talked about the business cases in Bangladesh highlighting the opportunities prevailing in the country.

The CEOs also raised some issues regarding non-tariff barriers, and regarding this, Salman said that they (CII) were asked to told their government to ease this process.

Prime Minister Press Secretary Md Nayeemul Islam Khan was present in the media briefing.

Prime Minister's Private Industry and Investment Adviser Salman Fazlur Rahman, Ambassador-at-large Mohammad Ziauddin, State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak, State Minister for Commerce Ahasanul Islam Titu, Principal Secretary M Tofazzel Hossain Miah, Senior Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Md Mustafizur Rahman and Awami League Presidium Member Kazi Zafarullah, among others, were present.

FBCCI President Mahbubul Alam, Nitol Niloy Group Chairman Abdul Matlub Ahmad, Pran RFL Group Chairman Ahsan Khan Chowdhury and some other Bangladeshi businessmen also participated in the meeting.

Besides, Chairman and Managing Director of ITC Limited Sanjiv Puri, Director General of CII Chandrajit Banerjee, Executive Vice Chairperson of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited Shobana Kamineni, Chairman of Indian Oil Corporation Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, CEO of Dabur India Limited Mohit Malhotra, Managing Director of Amrit Cement Limited Pradeep Kumar Bagla, CEO (Energy) of Adani Power Limited Deepak Amitabh, Executive Director and COO of Saankhya Labs Vishwakumara Kayargadde, CTO and Founder of Tejas Networks Limited (Tata group company) Dr Kumar Sivarajan and Deputy Director General of CII Marut Sen Gupta, among others, were present.