BIDA improves services for investors

Investors seeking to do business in Bangladesh can now avail four more public services from the One-Stop Service (OSS) portal on the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority's (BIDA) website.

BIDA inked separate deals with four different power distribution organisations to provide new electric supply facilities for factories established by investors through an online application at its office in the city's Agragaon recently.

And now, the OSS centre has a total of 38 services that investors can avail online.

The recently integrated organisations are: Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board, Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC), Northern Electricity Supply Company and West Zone Power Distribution Company.

Of the 34 information-based services available on the site before, 14 were provided by BIDA while the remainder were handled by the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms, the National Board of Revenue and Sonali Bank. BIDA aims to incorporate 23 more dedicated services to the OSS platform within September in an effort to improve Bangladesh's ranking on the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index and attract more foreign investment.

After launching the OSS centre in February, 2019, BIDA penned deals with 20 organisations till date with 16 of those signing coming over the last one month alone.

Meanwhile, with a goal to integrate as many as 154 services from 35 agencies, BIDA is in the process of adding another 38 dedicated services in a bid to facilitate investment in the country.

Bangladesh is moving towards  becoming a developed nation under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said Md Sirajul Islam, executive chairman of BIDA.

"It is possible to do that only by attaining international quality investment services. We need to make our investment services easier, more transparent, and faster so that potential investors can easily get the services from one place," he said.

BIDA is committed to provide these services not just by signing memoranda of understanding (MoU), but also implementing these initiatives quickly.

As a result of the integration of this MoU, domestic and foreign investors will get new electricity connections very quickly, Islam added.

Previously, it could take up to several months to secure a power supply for newly established factories but thanks to the new arrangement, investors will now have their operations hooked up with the national electric grid within 30 days.