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All seen depending on project implementation

US FDI in Bangladesh may hit $ 2.3b in 2-3 yrs
Foreign Direct Investment (FDD from the United States to Bangladesh rose to 700 million US dollars in three years from a paltry sum of $25 million following opening up of gas and oil sectors to the foreign companies for exploration and production, reports BSS.
The US Embassy in Dhaka estimates that American investment in Bangladesh would go up to 2.3 billion US dollars within two to four years if the projects in the pipeline and those under proposal were completed.
President of American Chamber in Bangladesh Forest E Cookson told BSS yesterday that the country may receive another 600 million US dollars in the next one year if Bangladesh opens up more of its sectors allowing export to India. He said that the investment would come on two counts — one
In the development activities and the other in sales proceeds of the explored gas.
The AmCham president said UNICOL and Shell, two reputed oil companies, would spend 250 million us dollars in development activities for new exploration each, while 100 million US dollars would be earned from the marketing of gas alone.
Income from the sales proceeds is expected to pick up in the next two years after streamlining of the required marketing operations.
Cookson earlier said that the expected US President Bill Clinton to propose Bangladesh to open up Its gas sector for export during his talks with Bangladesh leaders.
"But I don't think anything big will be decided during the visit of the US pirsideut Perhaps. the president will cm onr-
age Bangladesh to commit to export some Trillion Standard Cubic Feet (TCFI of gas," he said.
According to official estimate. Bangladesh's proven natural gas reserves Is 10.7 TCF Pa-trobangla and two foreign firms produce an average of 930 mil lion TCF per day. supplying 75 per cent of Bangladesh's commercial energy demand. An Inadequate gas transmission system is considered by experts as a serious obstacle to growth.
US sources said the other prospective sectors for American firms in Bangladesh include power generation, telecommunications, computers. aircraft parts and ground support equipment, textile machinery, architecture and construction engineering services.
The bilateral trade imbalance continued to be in favour of the US in calendar year 1998, when It reached a rec ord 1 5 <
billion US dollars, up from 1.42 billion in 1997 and 0.93 billion US dollars In 1996. Experts attributed the deficit to increase exports of Bangladesh garments to US market.
US Department of Commerce documents show that in 1998. US import from Bangladesh reached 1.85 billion US dollars, which was 10 per cent up from the previous year. In that year garments increased by 14 per cent to 1.16 billion US dollars, while knitwear Increased eight per cent to 331 million US dollars.
For the second year in a row, US exports to Bangladesh increased by 23 per cent to reach 318 million US dollars In calendaryear 1998. Export figures for January-June. 1999 show exports from the US were down by about 13 per cent while Bangladeshi exports to US fell by one per cent.