Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Distinguished Fellow of CPD, made a keynote presentation on “Foreign Direct Investment: Advantage Bangladesh, Destination Bangladesh” at the inaugural session of the SAFA International Conference 2019. In his presentation, he stressed that a well-governed, dynamic and environmentally sensitive foreign direct investment (FDI) sector could play an important role in enabling Bangladesh to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The half-day international conference was organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB), on 30 November 2019 at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel, Dhaka. ICAB is one of the founding members of the South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), an apex body of SAARC. His Excellency Mr. Md. Abdul Hamid, Hon’ble President of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, was present as the Chief Guest at the inaugural session of the conference.
The presentation by Professor Rahman highlighted that for Bangladesh, attracting FDI in a competitive global environment will significantly hinge on its ability to do the needed homework with the urgency it deserves. Issues pertaining to job creation, innovation and entrepreneurship promotion, policy alignment, infrastructure development, trade facilitation, financial sector regulation, skilled human resource development, new economy and fourth industrial revolution (4IR) preparedness, and regional FDI persuasion must be taken into cognisance in this regard. Professor Rahman also mentioned that the window of opportunity is rather low; so, Bangladesh needs to act promptly and strategically to seize this moment.
In his speech at the session, His Excellency Mr. Md. Abdul Hamid asked the chartered accountants to play a responsible role in ensuring transparency and accountability of accounts in public and private sectors. The head of the state also mentioned that, international conferences such as this would help highlight the scope of investments in Bangladesh in front of the foreign investors. He also urged the foreign participants at the conference to put multi-sectoral collaborative efforts to deal with the problems that the South Asian countries are facing commonly.
Around 500 delegates, including government officials, business leaders, professionals and delegates from SAARC countries, participated at the conference.