Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD) Ferdaus Ara Begum on Wednesday said there is no alternative to the development of a synchronised multimodal logistics management system to reach US$ 2.5 trillion economy size and US$ 1.02 trillion in investment by 2041.
She said logistics has been treated as the key factor to take investment decisions.
The BUILD CEO said implementing the National Logistics Development Policy (NLDP) could be a way to ensure sustainable growth of the logistics sub-sectors.
BUILD presented the NLDP framework at the third meeting of the logistics infrastructure development working committee co-chaired by Md. Tofazzel Hossain Miah, senior secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, and Abul Kasem Khan, former Chairperson of BUILD.
Zakia Sultana, Secretary, Ministry of Industries, was also present.
Welcoming the stakeholders from the public and private sectors, Tofazzel Hossain appreciated the role of the Ministry of Industries for including logistics as the thrust sector, which was approved in the cabinet recently and is holistically a new component following the recommendations of the committee secretarial services of which is being given by BUILD.
The benefits of including logistics as a thrust sector will theoretically work out, and this would be a paradigm shift for the country in the future.
“We would like to draft the logistics policy as the next step, and once the policy is in place, we will go for implementation, boosting the growth,” he said.
Read:S Korea to provide $ 3 bn soft loans to Bangladesh: Ambassador Lee
FBCCI President Md Jashim Uddin said once the draft is shared with them, they will work to gather their comments on the policy and will be ready to extend all support.
Underscoring more engagement from both public and private sectors, Abul Kasem Khan thanked everybody for working together on the policy, which is very much required as logistics is the number one issue for supporting business.
CCCI President Mahbubul Alam suggested establishing a truck terminal in each and every port so that transportation and communication are made easier.
BUILD Chairperson Nihad Kabir viewed that they need to be more ambitious in fixing the target of logistics cost reduction so they can challenge themselves.
She suggested bringing NBR on board from the beginning and taking care of WTO-related issues as Bangladesh will graduate by 2026.
President of DCCI Rizwan Rahman said there would be a need to organise sub-sectoral FGDs, and responsibilities can be shared in that respect. “Bonded warehouse facilities are different for different sectors which can be linked with the policy.”
Dr Masrur Reaz, Chairman, Policy Exchange, thanked BUILD for developing a policy and suggested an integrated angle for each subsector.
Naquib Khan, President, Supply Chain Management, suggested including the lead time issue along with the cost calculation.
Nusrat Baby, transport specialist of the World Bank emphasised bringing convergence in all sectoral logistics issues and expressed their desire to extend all support for research and development in having a good logistics sector.
Mohammad Lutfullah, senior private sector specialist of IFC said that formal inclusion of the logistics sector by the Cabinet in the industrial policy is much appreciated recognition from the government.