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Bangladesh seeks $10 bln FDI to meet power demand
DHAKA - Bangladesh on Sunday said it wants to secure $10 billion in investment to boost its limping energy sector and plans a series of roadshows in Britain, the United States and Singapore to woe investors.
A lack of power and gas has held back development, hampered poverty reduction and slowed overall economic growth, it said, and so an 11-member team of experts, led by the prime minister’s energy adviser, Towfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury, would seek the investment needed to turn the sector around.
Terming the trip a ‘road show’ to drum up investment, Chowdhury told reporters before departing on Sunday that initially they would aim to attract $5 billion investment for the period until 2013, and then another $5 billion by the end of 2021.
Bangladesh’s donors and friendly governments had long insisted the impoverished Indian ocean nation of 150 million people must have a freely elected democratic government to woo investors and pursue development, especially in energy and infrastructure that are key to take the fledgling economy forward.
Bangladesh’s annual GDP growth has hovered at around 6 percent over the past decade but the officials, economists and analysts say Dhaka needs to achieve double-digit growth to combat poverty that still grips more than 40 percent of its people.
‘Bangladesh will seek $10 billion foreign direct investment to generate enough power to meet fast growing demands and achieve double-digit growth by 2021,’ Chowdhury said.
‘We will hold a series of seminars in different countries to attract potential investors,’ he said, adding that the government of Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina aims to augment power generation to the optimum level by the next five years.
‘Initially we will require $5 billion to produce 4,035 megawatts (MW) of electricity over the next four years.’
Bangladesh currently produces up to 3,800 MW of electricity against daily requirements of up to 5,000 MW, energy officials said, adding that the demand is expected to rise to 8,364 MW by 2013.
The mainly agrarian Bangladesh also wants to push industrialising, especially agro-based and environment friendly industries to find more jobs for its people and reduce dependence on foreign aid.
Chowdhury said the Bangladesh government has planned to install three combined cycle power plants with total capacity of 1,125 MW and two peaking power plants with 100 MW capacity each.
Also it plans to install imported coal-based power plants to produce up to 2,600 MW by 2013.
‘Besides, we will generate 110 MW power by renewable energy based plants and set up one liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Bay of Bengal for easy off-loading of imported LNG containers,’ the energy adviser said.
He said that all the plants would be set up on build, operate and own basis.
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