Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) Executive Chairman Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun on Monday warned that the country's unresolved energy crisis remains the single biggest obstacle to attracting both local and foreign investment, and that no amount of policy reform will convince investors without a reliable power and gas supply.
“Until we solve the energy problem, we can talk about investment but it's going to be very difficult for local and foreign investors to believe in the Bangladesh story,” Ashij was speaking at a roundtable on ‘Trade Policy, Industrial Protection, Investment Impacts, and Consumer Welfare,’ organised by the Policy Research Institute's (PRI) Center for Trade Policy and Protection Research (CTPPR) with support from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), held at PRI's Banani office.
Ashik said Bangladesh's fundamental investment challenge is not the absence of good policy but the failure to implement it.
He cited the difficulties businesses routinely face in clearing raw materials at Chattogram Port as a case in point, a problem where policies exist on paper but enforcement and execution remain dysfunctional. “At the principal level, there are policies regarding these problems but no execution.”
Ashik added that the government's current priority has shifted from chasing headline growth figures to generating sustained, employment-driven growth, and that BIDA is working to merge and streamline investment promotion institutions to reduce friction for investors.
The BIDA chief disclosed that investment promotion agencies have submitted 46 specific recommendations to the National Board of Revenue (NBR), including 19 proposals on deregulation. Among the key proposals is the introduction of a structured VAT slab system to provide clearer incentives for local value addition and reduce policy uncertainty.
Ashik also pushed back against criticism that BIDA favours foreign investors over domestic businesses, saying the agency advocates for all investors from within the government.
While foreign direct investment brings technology transfer and efficiency gains, he noted that domestic investment remains the backbone of Bangladesh's economy. “Bida's responsibility is to advocate from within the government on behalf of all local and foreign investors.”
In his keynote address, PRI Chairman Dr. Zaidi Sattar painted a stark picture of a trade policy framework that has for decades prioritised protecting domestic producers at an enormous and largely invisible cost to ordinary Bangladeshis.
He said Bangladesh's average tariff burden of 28 percent, against a global average of 6 percent and a lower-middle income country average of 7.2 percent, combined with a web of para-tariffs, has pushed the nominal protection rate to 27.9 percent in FY26, making domestic sales far more profitable than exporting and creating a structural anti-export bias across the economy.
The roundtable was chaired by Dr. Sattar. Panelists included Consumer Association of Bangladesh President AHM Shafiquzzaman, former NBR member Md Farid Uddin, Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Taskeen Ahmed and Policy Exchange Bangladesh Chairman and CEO M Masrur Reaz.