1. 'Bangladesh Investment Summit' held in London
Submitted by Hisham Bin Mustafa on Tue, 18/06/2013 - 9:26am
Dhaka, June 18 (Priyo.com): The inaugural 'Bangladesh Investment Summit' aimed towards European investors was held recently at Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London.
The conference was organised by FinanceAsia and AsianInvestor to explore the trade and investment opportunities in Bangladesh for Asia's sovereign wealth funds, long term
foreign direct investors, public and private pension funds and other financial investors.
Standard Chartered Bank Bangladesh was the main sponsor of this event. The first such summit to showcase Bangladesh as a pote ntial investment destination was held in
Singapore in December 2012, also with Standard Chartered as the key sponsor.
The day-long summit in London attracted over 300 investors, fund managers, MNC executives attended the summit.
Jim McCabe, CEO Standard Chartered Bangladesh delivered the Chairman's welcome speech; Jim O'Neill, Former Chairman, Goldman Sachs Asset Management & Former
Chief Economist, Goldman Sachs gave the opening keynote address. O'Neill, in 2005, had included Bangladesh among the "Next 11 " countries set to follow the BRIC nations
as the biggest economies in the world. "Bangladesh's inclusion is based on many positive achievements such as reduction in co st of starting a business, a more open
economy, mobile subscriptions and other social indicators; however, scores can improve in terms of political stability and inflation." O'Neill told delegates during his speech at
the summit.
The Plenary address on Bangladesh's economic trends, issues and prospects was given by Dr. Hassan Zaman, Chief Economist of B angladesh Bank Zaman presented
Bangladesh's impressive progress across a range of socio-economic indicators highlighting the significant common ground on development strategy which has withstood
political transitions, the role of experienced technocrats in macro-management and partnerships between government, the private sector, NGOs and external partners. Zaman
highlighted recent steps to ease foreign exchange regulations, remove restrictions for foreign investment in domestic bond ma rkets and encouraged investors to contribute to
Bangladesh's inclusive growth story. "A growing domestic middle class in a country with over 150 million, mostly young people , presents significant business opportunities and
the medium run economic growth path will withstand current domestic political tensions" said Dr. Zaman.
Among others, The Rt. Hon. Lord Heseltine CH, Former Deputy Prime Minister and Founder of the Haymarket Group; Mahfuz Anam, E ditor & Publisher, The Daily Star; Nirukt
Sapru, Head, OCC Growth Markets, South East Asia & South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank; delivered plenary addresses and participated in panel discussions such as "
Britain's role in the development of trade and investment in Bangladesh", "Navigating political risk in an election year", "B eyond Apparels, Bangladesh's export journey",
"Securing infrastructure investment and funding", "Access routes for offshore financial investors", etc.
Jim McCabe, CEO Standard Chartered Bangladesh said, "Standard Chartered is very happy to present Bangladesh and its p otentials to the global investor's community,
through such Investment Summits. As partners in progress for the nation for several decades, and being the leading internatio nal bank in the country, we want to help explore
all avenues to take Bangladesh's success story forward. The story of Bangladesh has remained untold to a large extent; and I hope our attempts will raise the int erest of key
decision makers in the financial sector to join the exciting journey that is the development of Bangladesh"
The closing address of the summit was delivered by Mohamed Mijarul Quayes, High Commissioner, The People's Republic of Bangladesh in Un ited Kingdom. The one day
summit ended on a high note, with the majority of participants interested to further explore investment o pportunities in Bangladesh.
News Source:
The Financial Express