Announce target regions for industrial expansion

Country's top businessmen yesterday proposed to the government to announce target regions for industrial expansion with availability of adequate gas and electricity supply.
Expressing their grave concern over the power shortage, they also urged the government to buy at least 500MW power by this year and add another 500MW by June 2008 so that smooth industrial growth is ensured.
The top businessmen placed the proposals before high ups of the caretaker government at a dialogue on "Bangladesh Economy and Future Perspective". at a city hotel.
The Ministry of Commerce organised the dialogue where Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed and Chief of Army Staff General Moeen U Ahmed were present.
The businessmen also urged the government to announce the lone-waiting coal policy. They also demanded to lower the industrial lending rate to a single digit.
Mahbubur Rahman, president of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICC-B), Annisul Haque, former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), and M A Rouf Chowdhury, a director of FBCCI (Federation of Bangladesh chamber of Commerce and Industry), presented separate keynote papers at the discussion relating to recent economic trends.
In his speech, Mahbubur Rahman said time has come to review seriously whether IMF and World Bank guidelines and conditionalities did any good for the growth and development of Bangladesh economy in the past.
"In this connection, we would urge the government not to sign the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) of IMF, which in a way would be compromising for our sovereignty and allow them just to act as a credit rating agency here," he said.
The government has set a 7 percent growth target for the coming fiscal.
Rahman said it is maintained that all the three major components of GDP like agriculture, industry and service sectors should enhance their contribution further to attain this optimistic growth target.
He said the recent slowdown in the growth of gross capital formation and private investment however does not evoke much optimism in this regard.
According to him, to achieve the targeted GDP growth, an additional investment of Tk200 billion to Tk250 billion will be required.
In his presentation, Annisul Haque placed a comparative view of lending rates in Bangladesh and some other neighboring countries.
He said when the industrial lending rates in some neighboring countries are low, it increases in Bangladesh in recent time.
Haque proposed to the government to formulate a short term and long term plans for the power and gas sector development in the country.
He said Bangladesh's exports to the global market doubled in the last five years. But some barriers that hinder expansion of Bangladesh's export market still remain, he lamented.
He urged the government to focus on bilateral and multilateral negotiation for getting duty free market access of Bangladesh product to the developed countries.
Rouf Chowdhury said there is no good news in our investment horizon.
He said bank credit flow to the private sector has slowed and foreign investment is lower even than that in the last year.
"A large part of it relates to lack of confidence and uncertainties but an even larger part relates to high interest rates and tight monetary policy of the Bangladesh Bank," he said, adding "in fact, the most serious borrower today is the government, not the private sector".
The manufacturing sector has suffered a serious setback because of the rise in import taxes of industrial raw materials, Chowdhury said.
The last budget unfortunately favoured imports, not manufacturing, which resulted in generation of few jobs, he said.
"We have to create 20 lakh jobs per year, the fact today is the government is firing workers at a faster rate than the private sector is hiring," Chowdhury went on.