INITIATIVES for special economic zones of the Awami League government, which was toppled through a mass uprising on August 5, have almost fallen flat. Modelled on the Chinese success of industrialisation, the initiatives taken in 2015 to set up 97 such zones still fall short of the target. The government of the day planned to set up 68 of them and had plans to put the establishment of the remaining 29 zones in private hands with the initial deadline of 2030, which has already been extended until 2041. Operation in 10 zones 鈥� three under public initiatives and seven under private initiatives 鈥� has partly begun and work on others has fallen behind schedule because of delay in infrastructure development. Yet, many other zones, mostly taken up without any feasibility studies, are still in approval stages. Experts believe that the initiatives were nothing short of publicity stunts of the Awami League government that had been obsessed about a development-centric growth, which hardly benefitted people at large. The Awami League government falsely projected a rosy picture of employment generation and earning from the economic zones, but nothing noticeable has so far been achieved. The initiatives have now been a challenge for the interim government.
The major reasons that have held back the initiatives include the inefficiency of implementing agencies, the politicisation of the investor selection process, flawed planning and land acquisition problems. There are allegations that some of the zones were approved on political considerations. The Anowara Economic Zone 2 across the River Karnaphuli in Chattogram is a case in example. The zone was exclusively given to Chinese investors in 2015. A tunnel under the river has already been constructed for Tk 59.13 billion taken out in loans from China. But the zone has so far made little progress. Data show that the Economic Zones Authority received investment proposals involving $28.75 billion from companies at home and abroad, but the actual investment was about $6.00 billion between 2020 and June 2023. Inequality in opportunity for investors is said to have widened in the past decade and a half of the Awami League鈥檚 consecutive tenure in office and partisan loyalty prevailed over merit and the investor鈥檚 capacity for access to bank credits, highlighting a glaring absence of democratic governance that was a major problem for both local and foreign investors. Foreign direct investment in the 2024 financial year declined to a decade鈥檚 low amidst negative credit rating, the shortage of the dollar, political uncertainty, inefficient bureaucracy and corruption.
The government should, therefore, ease doing business, bring about sustainable political stability, purge inefficiency and corruption and do away with the already identified barriers to pave the way for more private investment. Both the Investment Development authority and the Special Economic Zones Authority acknowledge a waning share of Bangladesh in Asia鈥檚 $620 billion in foreign direct investment. Bangladesh鈥檚 graduation from the category of least developed countries into a developing country could be rough without local and foreign private investments, both inside the economic zones or outside.
