Land development at Japanese EZ begins next month

Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) is going to begin the land development works of the Japanese Economic Zone (EZ) from next month of this year as all necessary procedures in this regard have almost been completed.

"We are going to finance for the new Japanese EZ at Araihazar area in Narayanganj district. BEZA has almost completed its land development contractor selection process. We hope that contract with land development contractor will be signed within this month and construction work will be started by next month," Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Bangladesh Office Representative Wataru Osawa told BSS here.

Earlier, the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) approved a Tk1081.45 crore proposal for conducting land development and other necessary works for the Japanese EZ being built at Araihazar in Narayanganj on some 1,000 acres of land.

According to the approval, TOA Corporation of Japan has been awarded the contract for conducting the necessary land development, erecting boundary walls, constructing connecting roads, excavating retention canals and building pumping stations at the Araihazar EZ.

Wataru Osawa said JICA will finance for the off-site infrastructure of the economic zone, like power plant, sub-station, access road, land development and some cannels.

He said BEZA and Japanese developer has already established a new special purpose company (SPC) to manage the new EZ.

Wataru Osawa informed that JICA is funding in the EZ under the "Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Promotion Project" and the project will also finance the Japanese and other FDI companies for their short-term, midterm and long-term capital investment and operations to promote investment in Bangladesh.

Under the project, he said, investors in Japanese EZ, Japanese and Bangladeshi or other foreign joint venture enterprises and Bangladeshi companies which are expected to have more than $1 million of deal with the Japanese firms will get a w-interest loan.

Wataru Osawa hoped that higher level industries will be set up in the EZ as all sorts of modern facilities will be ensured there.

Through the establishment of this EZ, planned industrialization would be ensured side by side many new employment opportunities would be created.

After the exchange of visits of the Prime Ministers between the two countries in 2014, the number of Japanese inventors in Bangladesh is increasing day by day.

Now, the Japanese business community has started to pay attention to Bangladesh as the next destination of investment.

The zone is expected to attract US$20 billion worth of foreign investments, most of which will be from Japan.

The investment is likely to play an important role in creating employment and also in transferring technologies to this country.

The zone will have an appropriate recycling plant to remove industrial wastes.

Industries from the agro-food, light engineering, chemical, automobile assembly, garments and pharmaceutical sectors will be set up in the EZ.

The economic zone is likely to create around 100,000 employments.