The New Nation - Internet Edition

IN international rankings, Bangladesh scores well in respect of policies pertaining to foreign investment but comes out not so impressive in the sphere of regulations. Through reform of regulations, there is an opportunity for the country to make a big jump in its international rankings for better practices in businesses. Such an achievement would be very positive because in all cases increases in foreign investments in a country are seen vitally connected to improvement in its perception as a favourable location for investments. And the perception is mainly formed on the basis of such rankings.

The inflow of foreign investments into Bangladesh has dwindled by more than 50 per cent in the span of a year. This is a most undesirable trend for a country that suffers from insufficient investment in the economy in both public and private sectors. The rising foreign investments flow in recent years was looked upon as an encouraging development from the perspective of boosting investment operations in the economy which is a big determinant for the economy's expansion leading to income and employment generation. Thus, there is a pressing need to give a spur to the foreign investment inflow.

One can easily realise the sort of frustration that investors are confronted with from knowing that it takes unusually long time and cumbersome procedures, for foreign investors to only register property in Bangladesh. Similar delaying factors are witnessed in other spheres of the regulatory regime which are not at all conducive from the standpoint of motivating the foreign investors. Thus, rationalising of this regulatory framework is imperative to make it responsive to the demands for saving time and hassles - two considerations uppermost in the minds of most of the foreign investors.