If business opportunity is mangoes on a tree, effort is the energy needed to scale it and pluck as much of the sweet fruit as possible. In Bangladesh, these trees are super tall.
Notwithstanding the honest efforts of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh still remains a difficult country to do business -- entrepreneurs are hobbled by endless adherence to overlapping regulations sans coordination among the various government agencies.
To be precise, the devil is in the details. Of the 17 public entities and one private firm enlisted by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) for providing 57 services under one roof -- called the 'one
stop service' (OSS) -- to investors planning to set up shops, only a few are active.
Read:Investment proposals grow 46.33 pc in July-September 2021: BIDA
The One Stop Service Act, 2017, to provide domestic and foreign investors hassle-free clearances from a single venue came into effect in February 2018. Nearly four years on, 15 government entities, including the National Board of Revenue (NBR), remain inactive to provide services under the OSS.
Only the NID service of Bangladesh Election Commission and the e-payment platform of Sonali Bank are providing services properly.
Bangladesh’s effort to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) cannot be achieved under such a bureaucratic red tape, according to a top leader of a trade body.
However, BIDA chief has refuted the allegations of bureaucratic red tape. His logic is simple -- "the initiative will fructify over time", another bureaucratic alleby.
"BIDA is working to provide 57 services online by 18 public and private sector agencies under the OSS, including business registration, land allocation, trade body membership etc. The system is corruption-free and fast," said Md Sirajul Islam, the executive chairman of BIDA.
At present, BIDA is providing 18 services under the online initiative where every movement of a file is tracked, he said.
