BEZA to begin land development in December

The land development works of the Japanese Economic Zone (EZ) by Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) is going to begin in December this year. 

All necessary procedures in this regard have almost been completed.

“Japanese EZ is being set up at Araihazar in Narayanganj on some 1,000 acres of land. We have already acquired 500 acres of land. Out of another the 500 acres, the acquisition of around 200 acres of land is under process,” a senior official, related to the EZ said.

He said: "BEZA is going to appoint developers for landfilling of the economic zone under a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) project, titled Infrastructure Development of the Japanese Economic Zone.”

“Tender process has already been completed. We will appoint a developer soon for landfilling,” he added.

The official hoped that the investors at the Japanese EZ would set up planned and environment-friendly industries.

Through the establishment of this EZ, he said, planned industrialization would be ensured side by side many new employment opportunities would be created.

After the exchange of visits of the Prime Ministers between the two countries in 2014, the number of Japanese inventors in Bangladesh is increasing day by day. Now, the Japanese business community has started to pay attention to Bangladesh as the next destination of investment.

Following this trend, the government of Bangladesh and JICA signed a loan agreement of the Foreign Direct Investment Promotion Project (FDIPP), and the Bangladesh government decided to establish Japanese EZ as a joint venture project based on the G2G provisions of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Act 2010 in cooperation with JICA.

The goal of the project is to expand the facilities of diversifying industries to produce various commodities, create a friendly environment for attracting Japanese and local investment and to reduce poverty and improve the standard of life by generating employment for sustainable economic development.

BEZA expects that industries from the agro-food, light engineering, chemical, automobile assembly, garments, and pharmaceutical sectors will be set up in the EZ. 

The economic zone is likely to create around 100,000 employments.