ADB approves grant to improve Bangladesh’s business competitiveness

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $0.5 million in grant assistance for supporting knowledge works to promote business competitiveness and intraregional trade of Bangladesh, said a media release Wednesday.

The assistance is additional to an earlier grant of $2 million approved in 2018 for creating innovative knowledge solutions on strategic issues for Bangladesh's economic transformation, it added.

"In addition to export diversification and enhanced domestic resource mobilization, Bangladesh needs to significantly increase foreign direct investment and intraregional trade to propel the ongoing growth and development further," said ADB Country Director Manmohan Parkash.

"Bangladesh has immense opportunities to make significant progress in the Doing Business indicators since its current ranking is only 168 out of 190 economies."

"The countries that score high on doing business rankings have several common features such as sound business regulation with a high degree of transparency, and widespread use of digital systems," he further said.

"Bangladesh can gain significantly by modernizing its property registration system, as well as improving online business incorporation procedures, tax filing system, and contract enforcement system."

He noted that the government is keen to improve its Doing Business ranking.

The ADB country director said, "The knowledge assistance will help prepare actionable policy recommendations for improving the Doing Business ranking of Bangladesh to attract companies, industries, and foreign direct investments."

"It will also help develop high-quality knowledge and policy tools to identify investment, and supply chain opportunities for Bangladesh to promote intraregional trade with the countries under the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) initiative," he concluded.