For the last couple of years many Polish companies decided to move their production to Bangladesh. Taking into consideration the huge trading potential between these two countries I believe that those steps taken by Polish investors should be only the beginning of dynamic cooperation between Poland and Bangladesh and that is should develop year by year. That is why I would like to tell you few words about the investing possibilities for Polish businessmen in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh is one of the world's leading producers of jute and jute-deriving products. Another dinamically developing sectors of economy are mainly fish and poultry industry (with particular emphasis on deep-cooled products) and also leather industry. Nevertheless, at the moment the force that drives economy of the country is the textile industry and all possible light industries related to that sector.
The biggest problem of the growing economy of this country is a chronic shortage of electricity caused by new construction law and the neccesity of huge investments into that sector. One of the raw materials used in Bangladesh to produce electricity is coal but the resources available in the country unfortunately does not cover the needs of the domestic economy.
As you all know, Polish energy sector is also based on coal and due to the long tradition of the usage of coal as an energy source Poland certainly has all the neccessary technologies conected to the efficient extraction of energy from the coal resources.
Therefore we would like to encourage Polish energy companies to invest in this sector of economy in Bangladesh. Investment risk is small and the rate of return would definitely exceed the profits that they could have get by investing in other countries.
Bangladesh is a country with an extremely great investment potential. A major advantage of the country is sustained growth rate of a dynamic economy, as well as skilled and cheap labor force consisting mainly of young people, because about 50% of the population is under 25 years old. There is also no language barrier as a commonly used language is English. What's more, over 6 million Bangladeshi are working abroad, mainly as a blue-collar workers. At this point we would like to encourage Polish entrepreneurs to employ Bengali labor force in Poland.
What guarantees competitiveness of exports is a duty-free access to EU, Canada, Australia and Japan markets and exemption from income tax for foreign investors. Bangladesh also offers the special economic zones with facilities and logistic support for foreign investors, and dynamically developing infrastructure - roads, highways, transportation system, ports.
Despite many domestic problems, Bangladesh is seen as an important new emerging market because of its great potential, especially in terms of the services sector. We truly hope that together we can support and develop cooperation between Poland and Bangladesh which would obviously bring numerous benefits to both countries.