Bangladesh is planning to attract foreign direct investment in production of defence hardware, said Bangladesh Investment Development Authority executive chairman Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun on Wednesday.
鈥榃e have an initiative to allow foreign investors to transfer technology here,鈥� he said at a briefing on the third day of the Bangladesh Investment Summit 2025 at a hotel in the capital Dhaka.
Side by side, foreign investors will be allowed to export defence hardware, he added while responding to a question whether the BIDA had plans to open the door of the defence industry to foreign investment.
FDI in defence hardware is not permitted in Bangladesh as it has been prioritising sectors like textiles and garments, infrastructure development, energy and power, IT, agro-processing, leather and footwear, pharmaceuticals, and tourism and hospitality for FDI.
Chowdhury Ashik observed that small defence hardware like radio, binoculars, and survival tools had a huge market.
He, however, said that the establishment of a military economic zone was a long journey.
Earlier, he stated they were talking with the army, the navy and the air force about the issue since the country鈥檚 existing ordinance factories were operated by the entities.
On the day鈥檚 events, the BIDA chairman said that the investment summit attracted an overwhelming number of visitors and DP World, a United Arab Emirates-based logistics company, had proposed the establishment of a free trade zone in Bangladesh as part of a long-term investment plan.
The announcement was made during a presentation by DP officials at the summit venue.
The DP World chairman and CEO, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, called on Bangladesh interim government鈥檚 chief adviser Muhammad Yunus at the state guest house Jamuna on the same day.
The BIDA executive chairman said that DP World wanted to operate a port like the one it had been operating in the UAE capital Dubai since 1985.
DP World calls it Jebel Ali Free Zone or Jafza in short and it is one of the world鈥檚 leading free trade zones that generated trade worth $104 billion in 2019, according to DP World.
Chowdhury Ashik also said that DP World would prefer an area close to Matarbari in Cox鈥檚 Bazar to establish the free trade zone because of close proximity of the under-construction deep sea port there.
He said that a Bangladeshi team would visit the UAE soon to gather knowledge about the free trade zone, a designated geographic area where goods can be imported, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured, and then re-exported, generally without customs duties or other taxes.
He also said that three political parties 鈥� Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and newly launched National Citizen Party 鈥� participated in the summit on the day and gave answers to queries from foreign investors.
Today is the fourth and final day of the summit.