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Record levels of foreign investment in EPZs

Jasim Uddin Khan
Foreign investment into the country's Export Processing Zones has hit record levels this year, with the weaker dollar, low labour costs and easy access to markets in Asia encouraging foreign manufacturers.
Agreements have been reached for more than USD5300 million worth of foreign investment in the EPZs since the turn of the year. This is on top of the $130 milion agreed in the last six months of 2007.
The surge is in marked contrast to foreign investment levels outside the EPZ which fell in the second half of 2007 to $368 million compared to $411 million in the same period a year earlier.
The Bangladesh Export Processing Zone (Bepza) also said it is receiving much larger scale investment proposals, many from non-garment manufacturers.
"The BEPZA never received over $100 million investment projects at a time, but during the last couple of months we
received several investment contracts that are worth more than $100 million," Bepza Executive Chairman Brg. General Ashraf Abdullah Yussufsaid.
He said Taiwanese furniture manufacturing company Tri Max Global Company Ltd. signed an expression of interest (Eol) with the government last month to invest around $120 million. The company booked 54 plots at Chittagong Kharnafuli EPZ. According to its proposal the company is planning to relocate their Malaysian plant to Bangladesh to reduce skyrocketing production costs.
A South Korean company PakaTextile has proposed to set up a weaving mill to produce fashion fabrics for exporting or for garment manufacturers in Bangladesh by investing around $120illion. PakaTextile is acquiring for 60,000 square meter land at the Adamjee EPZ atNaryangonj.
Another Taiwanese company, Golden Chang, came to Bangladesh in January this year to invest here around $70 million for setting a leather shoe
factory.
Besides an American company 'Leviathan Global Corporation' expressed its interest to invest $70 million to set up a 50 MW power plant and a tyre industry in Karnaphuli Export Processing Zone (KEPZ).
The Bepza chairman said the international entrepreneurs are attaching top priority to Bangladesh because of the country's close proximity to the fast growing South and South Asian markets and the fact that it is within easy reach ofthe Middle East.
Another reason for Bangladesh’s attraction for foreign investors has been the availability of an inexpensive and productive labor force, he added.
Azizur Rahman, Bepza General Manager (Investment Promotion) said some major footwear and leather goods producers and buyers from China, Taiwan and Italy are looking Bangladesh as a probable destination for relocating their production facilities.
Bangladesh has been spotted by the foreign shoemakers
for investment as its shoes exports get zero tariff access to European markets while Chinese and Vietnamese shoes export face anti-dumping duty, Azizur Rahman added.
Changing economic and political conditions in the Asian region are now prompting many international investors to reassess their investment strategies and plan for relocating their investments.
Those changes are provid-ing opportunities for Bangladesh to attract higher levels of FDI and take up production and marketing operations that are being shifted
from other countries.
Rising wage rate and production cost in many Asian countries are making them less attractive as sites for labor-intensive low-cost manufacturing.
Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA) was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1980 to attract foreign capital and technical know-how and thereby boost exports through the establishment of export-oriented industries in special zones with special facilities.
jasim@thedailystar.net