Saudi Arabia

Bangladesh Economic Development News

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Increasing Bangladesh Needs

Bangladesh needs more electricity. In an effort to deal with this, the country is currently trying to acquiesce a further $7bn from foreign investments to construct power plants to respond to this need. According to Senior VP of the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Saudi Arabia, Mahbubul Alam, it is actually worth investing in the country as he has found “lucrative returns” for his country. Indeed, as noted in a recent article, Alam said Bangladesh has developed “massive programs for infrastructure development in partnership with private sectors.”

Electricity Needs

Bangladesh’s population is thriving which is of course a good thing. But the 160 million inhabitants are developing greater needs which are not being fulfilled by the country’s “poorly maintained electricity grid which sees frequent outages during the peak months.” Clearly something needs to be done and a big investment would for sure be a great first step. The fact that the country’s power sector has now opened up to private investment is a good step in the right direction too. Bangladesh is offering a whole slew of new incentives for “private power producers” as well, such as not having to pay corporate income tax for up to 15 years and a waiving of custom duties for plant and equipment import. An agreement for the Avoidance of Double Taxation was also signed a few months ago.

Large Saudi Arabian Turkish Investments

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Saudi Arabia hopes to make significant investments into Turkey over the next two decades. Figures for this are up to $600 billion. The main areas of investment will probably be manufacturing and agriculture, according to the National Commercial Bank’s chair, Abu al-Nasr. He commented that agriculturally, Turkey has come out as “one of the top recipients of Saudi investment, as the kingdom seeks to boost its food security.” In this vein, Planet Food World is set to put a $3 billion investment into Turkish agriculture over the next five years. The goal is to ultimately “export food products to the Gulf region.”

Investments Good for King?

Maybe this is what is helping Saudi Arabia’s King get well again. According to reports from his daughter, King Abdullah is getting so much better that he will soon be making his way back to is country. Currently King Abdullah is in America where he went for back surgery on November 22 for a debilitating herniated disc complicated by a haematoma which put pressure on his spine. The surgery was successful but he also required a supplementary surgery to repair other vertebrae. That too went well.

Of course, any good news like financial improvement for his country would make King Abdullah happy. But perhaps this really good news about working with Turkey helped facilitate his recovery even further.