An impressive rise

It is extremely encouraging to see that Bangladesh’s foreign direct investment (FDI) has seen an impressive rise in the first half of 2019 -- growing by almost 20% to $1.7 billion compared to $1.41bn last year.

With the World Bank having recently named Bangladesh as among the 20 economies that saw progress in at least three out of 10 areas of ease of doing business -- an issue that has been a barrier for Bangladesh’s progress for some time now -- these are extremely encouraging signs that Bangladesh is truly ready to turn the corner in its development journey.

Indeed, the government must be applauded for the many initiatives it has introduced to create a more positive business climate -- such as policy reforms and removing infrastructural deficiencies -- and encourage more investment, something that has also been acknowledged by the country’s businesspeople and economic experts.

However, despite the significant improvements we have made, what must be remembered is that we have some way to go and the work is just beginning.

We are still significantly behind having an FDI that is standard for the size of our economy, and, despite improvements, we continue to lag behind many other Asian countries in the ease of doing business, which continues to be a significant  barrier to overcome for our economy.

To that end, despite the government’s many progressive reforms, it is important that they prioritize swift implementation of its policies and eliminate infrastructural deficiencies that threaten to halt our impressive progress.