ADB approves grant to improve Bangladesh’s business competitiveness, intraregional trade

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $0.5 million grant assistance for promoting business competitiveness and intraregional trade of Bangladesh.

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

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

"Bangladesh has immense opportunities to make significant progress in Doing Business indicators since its current ranking is only 168 out of 190 economies…It can gain significantly by modernising its property registration system, as well as improving online business incorporation procedures, tax filing system, and contract enforcement system," he said.

Noting that the government is keen to improve its Doing Business ranking, Parkash said, "It will 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 Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) initiative."

Bangladesh needs to significantly improve in many indicators of the Doing Business ranking in order to catch up with other countries in the region, including China and India, that have progressed in their rankings in recent years, he said.

He added that the indicators that need immediate attention for improvement in Bangladesh include enforcing contracts (rank 189), registering property (184), getting electricity (176), trading across borders (176), resolving insolvency (154), paying taxes (151), dealing with construction permits (135), starting a business (131), and getting credit (rank 119).