Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday urged Japanese business leaders to come to Bangladesh for exploring the potentials of business and investment opportunities that are waiting for them.

“We shall keep on improving the business environment and ensure a level playing field for you all to do businesses in Bangladesh,” she said.

The prime minister made the appeal while interacting with the selected Japanese business leaders (CEOs) at Hotel Westin here.

She said that even under the duress of Covid-19 pandemic, the bilateral trade between Bangladesh and Japan continued to grow significantly and crossed USD 4 billion milestone for the first-time during the Fiscal Year 2021-22.

“The number of Japanese companies operating in Bangladesh has gone up steadily in the last few years especially since 2014 when we entered into our ‘comprehensive partnership’, and Japan’s commitment under the Big-B initiative,” she said.

Hasina said she is sure that Japanese businesspeople are also following this increasing trend, and would be positively inclined to either expanding their existing businesses, or opening new ones in Bangladesh.

“I want to assure you that my government and all relevant agencies are keen to help you and our other friends from Japan in business endeavours in Bangladesh,” she said.

Seeing the exemplary outcome of the two countries’ bilateral relations in the last five decades, Bangladesh’s expectation is for a larger footprint of Japan in Bangladesh in the coming years, she said.

“We have already resolved a number of regulatory and policy issues raised by Japanese companies in Bangladesh,” she added.

In this connection, the Bangladesh premier said she herself took initiative to form the Bangladesh-Japan Joint Public-Private Economic Dialogue (PPED), and it held the 5th round of PPED on April 11 just before her arrival in Japan.

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She said Bangladesh has one of the most liberal foreign investment regimes in South Asia.

Sheikh Hasina mentioned that Bangladesh is fast emerging as a highly lucrative location for investment in terms of competitive cost, abundant human resources, sizeable domestic consumer market with high purchasing power and growing middle class.

Moreover, she said Bangladesh is striving to be the economic hub of the region by way of improving access to regional and international markets.

“We are establishing economic zones, high-tech/software technology parks across the country. Bangladesh has been developing a planned infrastructure base to place itself as a hub of connectivity between South Asia and Southeast Asia,” she said.

“Our Embassy here in Tokyo is ready to cooperate and facilitate your ventures in Bangladesh." She said.

Top business leaders from Japan came up with future plans regarding investment in Bangladesh.