H.E. Lee Yun-young, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in an interview.
South Korean Ambassador Lee Yun-Young sees Bangladesh as a potential destination for investment in terms of its geographical position and a future big market, but investors are in wait for a stable situation through the next polls.
He specifically pointed out policy shift in case of change of state power as a problem here for businesses. He hinted at political uncertainty and delay in major policies.
“Business community wants political stability. We are hopeful the political impasse will be settled as soon as possible. It is very important to hold free and fair elections,” said the envoy of one of Asia’s newly industrialized countries.
“Many investors also are waiting for this,” he told. Nayeem Siddique, Staff Author took the interview of Korean Ambassador.
Ambassador Lee Yun-Young said, “Since I came here one year back, I had met many Bangladeshis and found them very friendly. They expressed gratitude and appreciation for Korean contribution to Bangladesh’s socioeconomic development in the last 40 years. They appreciate Korea’s contribution to the development of the readymade garment industry here, which is now the second-largest apparel exporter in Asia. I feel very proud to state the fact that during the last 40 years, Korea remained a reliable and trusted partner of Bangladesh and made tremendous contribution to Bangladesh’s export promotion. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Korea’s diplomatic relations with Bangladesh. I feel proud to serve as Korea’s Ambassador to this great country. I would do my best to strengthen this relationship even further.”
Mr. Ambassador was saying, Korea is now 11th of the top countries in economy in the world. Some 112 Korean items including telephone, shipbuilding, semiconductor, etc now rank number one in the world. Automobiles, steel, petrochemicals are also among the top five in the world.
Korea is a country of 50 million populations with 100,000 square kilometers of area. It’s a small country in terms of size of land and population. During the last 60 years, we had to face provocation. We had been invaded by North Korea in 1950. During 1950-53, we saw a devastation of civil war with North Korea. Tens of millions of people died. We were a low income country in 1950, in spite of that very unfortunate history, we are now one of the top countries in economy in terms of democracy and social development.
Mr. Ambassador also stated three factors to overcome vicious cycle of low income and low development. Actually, three factors are very important to get out of this vicious cycle. Firstly, we had to focus on the right direction for development. Second is motivation and third is capacity building. These are the three key elements for the economic development. He was also saying that there is huge difference in the expectations and reality in Bangladesh. There are many hurdles to implement the expectations in reality so sometimes it’s become impossible to implement many positive things. Bangladesh is suffering from an image crisis due to political volatility, natural disaster, industrial disasters like Rana plaza collapse and factory fire. Foreigners and foreign countries consider Bangladesh as a disaster-prone country. There is instability as well.
While asking about the possibilities of establishing factory of Samsung in Bangladesh, Mr. Ambassador said that, Samsung is the world’s largest electronic company that earned $200 billion last year. It is producing semi-conductors, home appliances, and secured the top position in all these sectors. Samsung considered investment here. But, it is currently conducting a feasibility study in Myanmar because there is no encouraging environment here for investment, for example when there is electricity in CEPZ but no electricity in KEPZ though both EPZ in same area. But, if the same investor goes to Myanmar, the government of that country says ‘if you investment in Myanmar we can do anything for you”, so why not Myanmar? He also stated that Korean investors are waiting for election in Bangladesh. You need to make them understand that Bangladesh is the right destination and will be a real good partner. Korea has enough resources, but it lacks manpower. Bangladesh has good expertise, and we can go for new ventures here. The image of a country depends on its trade and invests, each country has its own problem but if there is will there is a way. He was also saying the problem of KEPZ as it’s not fully operational yet, KEPZ was registered in Bangladesh in 1996 and got the land after completing certain procedures in August, 1999 but KEPZ got the operational license in 2007 and also the environment clearance certificate in 2009 but the environment clearance certificate was cancelled from environment department though it was resumed after appealing to the Ministry. KEPZ is continuously asking the government for execution of transfer of the entire land. Power supply has been cut more than one year ago without any prior notice. We have been asking resumption of power connection to the KEPZ.
Those are the major issues that need to be solved. For those issues, some investors think Bangladesh is not a pro-business country yet. Sophisticated industries are also needed to be developed further. Sophisticated industries include distribution, logistics, tourism, banking, insurance, leather and so on.
We invited Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry delegation in Korea in July. The investors were saying they are only focusing on Myanmar for their new investment along with Cambodia and Vietnam. No one was interested about Bangladesh. I tried to encourage Korean investors to look into Bangladesh for their future investment. Actually, the investors want to come here, but they face so many obstacles. Inefficient infrastructure and complex procedure are one of those problems. There are many investors saying that they are facing anti-FTA assistance here. That is very important. And also the bureaucracy, political instability, unpredictability are hindering foreign investments here.
For tourists, there is almost no facility in Cox’s Bazaar. Tourists have no freedom of movement and entertainment there. Bangladesh has to develop its tourism sector to attract more tourists from across the world to explore the huge prospects of this sector. Tourists like to spend their money here. Why should they spend their money if there is no good facility for them? Tourism sometimes makes bigger contributions to the economy than the manufacturing sector.
The biggest obstacle is absence of direct air flights between Dhaka and Seoul. At present, flights have many stop-over between the two countries. Asian Airlines have been asked to set up direct air flight. It would bring more tourists and facilitate exchange of people, investors. We are using so many stopovers to fly to Korea.
Korea-Bangladesh has free-trade agreements, and Korea opened economy through FTA. Bangladesh needs to give access to market if it expects more investments. Actually, Korea is in a favorable condition. Our trade is increasing for many years. Our export was $1.8 billion to Bangladesh, but import from Bangladesh was only $0.3 billion last year. Good news is that Bangladesh’s exports to Korea have increased over the years. In the last five years, Bangladesh saw 69 percent growth in exports to Korea. There are some large Korean stakeholders in Bangladesh. Korea’s total RMG import is $6 billion, Bangladesh exports less than 3 percent of the volume. Bangladesh has the scope to expand market in Korea.
Bangladeshi people working in Korea earn 10 times more than they earn in Saudi Arabia. There is no discrimination in terms of wage, working condition for workers in Korean companies. 14,000 Bangladeshis are working in Korea. In Saudi Arabia and South Asia, many Bangladeshi employees are employed by Korean companies. Some 50,000 Bangladeshis are going to be employed by one Korean company in Iraq.
Bangladesh needs to invite more foreign investors as it is also a big market of 160 million people. There is high demand for electronics goods here. In the future, Bangladesh will also be a very good market for the global manufacturers.
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