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Private and foreign investment critical
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economic growth, job creation, higher incomes and improved living standards,” said the trade body.
It said FDI in Bangladesh helped the growth of important industries and infrastructure while facilitating technology diffusion.
Readymade garments, telecommunication, energy, consumer goods, and ICT sectors have largely benefited from an influx of FDI, said Ficci.
Ficci said as per the targets set by “Vision 2041”, Bangladesh’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is now over $450 billion, should increase to $2,333 billion by 2041.
Government spending on public healthcare needs to be two percent of the GDP while spending on education should be four percent of the GDP.
To attain the goal, the nation will need to ensure private investment at over one-third of the GDP. Also, the FDI needs to be $69.99 billion while the government’s total revenue needs to be $563 billion, or nearly one-fourth of the country’s economy in 2041.
Bangladesh’s FDI inflow and Global Value Chain (GVC) integration is lower than potential comparators, it said.
In the wake of global economic shifts, investment policies are gaining greater importance as determination of successes for FDI attraction and retention, said Ficci.
The trade body said various developing countries, including Saudi Arabia, have offered tax incentives for investment. It said Vietnam and India had created a conducive tax framework to bolster their competitive edge in the global investment landscape.
As such, it outlined 29 recommendations to enhance the broader investment climate and bolster overall investors’ confidence in areas of business regulations, access to land, infrastructure and logistics, skills and productivity, commercial dispute resolution, trade facilitation, technology diffusion, and access to finance.
Ficci suggested that government agencies implement the suggestions over the short, medium and long-term.
At the inauguration, Ficci President Naser Ezaz Bijoy said the size of Bangladesh’s economy was $8 billion at the time of the country’s liberation in 1971. Bangladesh is now almost a $500 billion economy and expected to reach $1 trillion 2031.

Forex transactions
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continue to rise, adding that it stood at Tk 219 crore in January, 2022.
Ahsan Ullah Chowdhury, head of digital financial services at Eastern Bank, told The Daily Star that foreign currency transactions through cards had been increasing since last year due to several factors, including differing foreign currency rates between card and cash transactions.
He said that even a few months ago there was a difference ranging from Tk 5-10 per dollar between foreign currency transactions made through cards and cash.
Another reason is that most banks have suspended the opening of student files, which has led people to conduct transactions through cards, Chowdhury added.
Another reason for the surge is that travelers prefers to make foreign currency transactions through cards and cash in the form of foreign currency such as US dollars is not always available on the market.
Travelers also use their cards to pay for expenses such as airfare, travel costs, hotel bookings and shopping expenses, he added.