The World Bank’s – ‘Ease of Doing Business’ (discontinued since 2019) has been a reference point highlighting the business ecosystem and its challenges in various countries, a ranking where Bangladesh has drastically lagged behind due to the difficulties associated with starting and operating a business.
In a recent undertaking by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) a special focus was allocated on elevating the ease of doing business in Bangladesh through a programme called ‘Bangladesh Investment Climate Improvement (BICI)’. The objective of the programme is to increase investment and firm registration by 10% per year.
It plans to do so by identifying 7 important pillars of business which is in line with World Banks’s index and derived from a combination of the Economist Intelligence Unit Index and local indicators. The identified pillars for primary focus are listed as such:
- Business entry, exit and technology adaptation
- Industrial infrastructure and logistics
- Cross-border trade and business
- Commercial dispute resolution
- Legal regulations
- Tax regime
- Financial and non-financial incentives and access to finance
The BICI framework proposed implementing 50 reforms in 50 weeks, while an additional 100 reforms will be catered to in 3 years. For the way forward, the framework plans to collect opinion from industry players through quick and mini surveys annually and analyze existing analytical reports from the past 12 months and private sector inputs will be used to determine need-based reforms.
Source: The Business Standard
