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Commercial ties between Denmark and Bangladesh gathering strength

Trade not aid
Denmark has been providing development assistance to Bangladesh for more than three decades, mainly as grants but also through soft loans. But over the years the cooperation between Denmark and Bangladesh has moved from encompassing mainly traditional development assistance into a more mature cooperation including also trade and business cooperation. Developing and strengthening of business
partners.
“We definitely sense a growing commercial interest for Bangladesh. Perhaps it is the international downturn that makes companies look for new opportunities and increasingly the focus is being placed on Bangladesh as the country offers both a cheap production hub for exploring the Asian markets and a strong and growing local market” says Morten Siem Lynge, B2B Coordinator, Embassy of Denmark.
cooperations are being explored intensively by private companies in Denmark and Bangladesh.
In 2000 the Embassy of Denmark initiated its first private sector programme. A Busin ess-to- Bus in ess Programme with the focus of supporting the creation of long-term partnerships and the transfer of know-how and management skills from Denmark to Bangladesh. The overall aim of the B2B-programme was from the beginning to create jobs, foreign exchange and sustainable and long term development by supporting e.g. the creation of joint ventures between Danish and Bangladeshi companies.
IT as the first successful focus area
Since 2000 around 70 partnerships between Danish and Bangladeshi companies have been supported. A large part of the partnerships have turned out quite successfully with long-term and beneficial partnerships for both the Danish and Bangladeshi companies.
Around one third of all the B2B-Projects have been initiated within the IT-Sector. When the sector was made a priority area five years ago the IT industry was still very much at an infant stage. The B2B-programme started by inviting groups of local companies to Denmark to identify local partners and followed-up by inviting groups of Danish companies to Bangladesh. In this way the B2B-Programme played a role in developing the IT sector and today a large number of Danish companies are working in Bangladesh in joint ventures. Some examples are Mindworking Asia and GraphicPeople, which both are companies with more than
160 employees. Even though the support given by the Embassy of Denmark to the joint ventures with local companies, in both cases has been winded up, both cooperations still exist and are growing.
“Doing IT in Bangladesh has a number of comparative advantages. The movement of "goods" is easy, a strong entrepreneurial spirit exists and the labour force is growing and getting more and more competent” explains Einar H. Jensen, Danish Ambassador to Bangladesh.
“Not all supported joint ventures are a success, but many are and it makes me especially proud to see that some of the first projects that we supported in the IT-sector now have grown to large independent companies. I am convinced that more of the existing and supported partnerships will grow as well and be just as successful as the older ones”, adds the Danish Ambassador.
Fishery and shipbuilding as new focus areas for the Danish B2B-programme
In November 2009 the Embassy of Denmark arranged a business delegation with 21 Danish companies, who visited Bangladesh for four days looking for local partners within fishery and shipbuilding. The visit was a success and of the 21 companies four have already signed cooperation agreements and entered the Danish B2B-programme. Another four companies are expected to be following the coming months. Five other companies have started commercial relations with Bangladesh either working with local agents found during their visit to Bangladesh or working on a more ad hoc basis with different local business