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Time to turn the Bol around

Syed Akhtar Mahmood
DR. Syed Abdus Samad, an experienced civil servant and a former principal secretary to the prime minister, has just taken over as the executive chairman of the important but neglected institution -- the Board of Investment. He has been given ministerial status, only the second head in Bol’s history to get this privilege.
This is a testimony both to die importance given to Bol and the confidence placed on Dr. Samad. The confidence is not misplaced; Dr. Samad brings several decades of administrative and policy-making experience, international exposure and receptivity to ideas and analysis. And die importance given to Bol is over-r due. Poverty reduction requires jobs and income generating opportunities, which require investment and a climate condu-civeto it.
The Bangladesh government lacks a focal point for driving the investment climate agenda. The Bol could play that role but hasn’t so far. For the last three years, it has been somewhat rudderless, with four executive chairmen in three years. We hope that under Dr. Samad, Bol will indeed play the leadership role expected of it.
The new head of the Bol has his work cut out for him. He has found himself at the top of an agency that is supposed to be an investment promotion and facilitation body but has essentially become a regulatory body — and a poor one at that!
A comparison with Bepza, also set up in the 1980s, is instructive.
Bepza started from scratch in terms of recruitment and could thus develop a professional cadre. Bol, by contrast, was saddled with hundreds of staff from the Department of Industries, an old-fashioned regulatory body. These officials came with a petty, controlling mindset common to such regulatory bodies -- hardly the kind of people you would want in an agency which needs to be pro active and nimble, and imbued with the spirit of facilitation, not control.
So the first task for Dr. Samad is to get the right people for the Bol. The Bol does not need to be a large organisation — in fact it should not be so - it just needs the right kind of people. It is now going through a process of attrition and many officials are retiring or about to do so. This means that the new head does not have to oversee a painful and politically contentious process of retrenchment.
But he still has a challenge. It will be difficult to get good people at the traditional civil service salary. Dr. Samad will have to persuade the relevant authorities to allow him to hire qualified people at market wages. He does not need that many -- just 30 bright young people can take the Bol a long way.
This recruitment has to be in the context of a strategic vision of where Bol will be in the next three years. Fortunately, the new head of Bol would find that a lot of the ground-work has been done for him. Last year, the Bol
prepared a three-year strategic plan through a process, which involved expert advice, stake-holder consultation and insights from international good practice. After a draft Plan was prepared, a small group, which included among others the president of FBCCI and the then executive chairman of Bol, visited the successful investment promotion agencies of Australia. Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.
The final plan has thus been informed not only by the feedback of local stakeholders but by the experience of some of the best investment promotion agencies in the world. So the plan is there; tire new Bol may make some modifications to it if necessary but then speedily move ahead and implement it.
The plan talks about a targeted approach to investment promotion, with both geographic as well as sectoral targeting. Targeting is important. Effective investment promotion agencies do not approach American investors in the same way as they would the Japanese; they would not talk to the IT companies in Silicon Valley in the same language as they would to the oil companies in Texas. So far, Bol's road shows, and other investment promotion efforts have lacked, this nuance.
Once the investor is attracted to Bangladesh, the next task is to keep him interested. This requires investor facilitation. Starting from the time a potential investor shows an initial interest to the time the investment actually happens, he needs help in finding information, obtaining access to land and utilities, and navigating the maze of government clearances and permits.
It is unlikely that Bol would be delegated the authority to provide all services and approvals - these are likely to remain in the domain of other agencies. So it has to become a one-stop shop of a
different kind - the kind that one sees in the effective investment promotion offices of the world. There, an officer is assigned to each investor and is charged with the responsibility of taking care of the investor's needs and doing the running around for him. The potential investor has to deal with just one person in the system and knows exactly who that person is.
The Bol’s activities should not stop once the investment materialises. In fact, a significant part of its efforts should be directed at existing investors. Bol needs to put in place an "after-care system" through which it will identify and address problems being faced by those who have already invested in the country.
Existing investors are important for at least two reasons. First, they account for ; a significant part of the foreign invest- ' ment. Second, when potential investors ' do their due diligence they often talk to . those who have travelled the same path before. If the old-timers have a bad story to tell, the newcomers usually hesitate to move further.
Finally, Bol should become the foremost policy advocate for investors. It should systematically diagnose the problems being faced by investors, identify the policy actions to address these and do advocacy within government to ensure that the actions are taken. As part of this advocacy role, the new executive chairman should take very seriously two additional roles he has as member-secretary of the Regulatory Reforms Commission (RRC) and of the Bangladesh Better Business Forum (BBBF).
After a very promising beginning, the RRC has become quite dysfunctional in recent months. Dr. Samad needs to urgently reactive the Commission. Most of his efforts as Bol
head will come to nothing if regulatory hassles constantly shackle the enterprising efforts of investors and if regulatory surprises get them off-balance at every twist and turn. He also needs to help reactivate the BBBF. The usefulness of this publicprivate dialogue platform is now widely recognised by the private sector, which has found this an effective body to work jointly with the government in identifying solutions to their problems and getting the decisions they need.
The BBBF, like the RRC, is a useful legacy of the caretaker government. A democratic government should attach even more importance to such a platform than a caretaker government did --after all, continuous dialogue and discussion with stakeholders is the essence
of democracy.
Dr. S. A. Samad's job will be a challenging one. There will be many moments of frustration and despair. In those moments, he should think of the enormous joy that a family gets one when one of its members finally gets the job it had so desperately prayed for.
Jobs and extra incomes come through investments, and investments happen when there is a climate conducive to it. As the "guardian" ofthe country's investment climate, Dr. Samad now has the ability to bring joy to millions of households in the country. In his illustrious career, this is possibly the most important job he will haveheld.Wewishhim good luck!
Syed Akhtar Mahmood is with the International Finance Corporation. E-mail: smahmood@ifc.org.