DHAKA, Jan 26, 2020 (BSS) – An agreement will be inked tomorrow between the Infrastructure Development of Japanese Economic Zone (EZ) Project and Japanese TOA Corporation for land development of the Japanese EZ.
Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus will attend the contract signing function as the chief guest at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in the city while Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Md Tofazzel Hossain Miah, Minister of the Embassy of Japan in Bangladesh Hiroyuki Yamaya, Chief Representative of the JICA Bangladesh Office Hirata Hitoshi, Chief Representative of JETRO Dhaka Yuji Ando and Executive Officer of the Internal Division of TOA Corporation, Japan Masaki Uematsu will be present as special guests.
Executive Chairman of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) Paban Chowdhury will chair the event.
Earlier, the Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) approved a Taka 1081.45 crore proposal for conducting land development and other necessary works for the Japanese EZ being built at Araihazar in Narayanganj on some 1,000 acres of land.
According to the approval, TOA Corporation of Japan has been awarded the contract for conducting the necessary land development, erecting boundary walls, constructing connecting roads, excavating retention canals and building pumping stations at the Japanese EZ.
Talking to BSS, JICA Bangladesh Office Representative Wataru Osawa said JICA is going to finance for the new Japanese EZ at Araihazar area in Narayanganj district.
JICA will finance for the off-site infrastructure of the economic zone, like power plant, sub-station, access road, land development and some cannels, he added.
He said BEZA and Japanese developer has already established a new special purpose company (SPC) to manage the new EZ.
Wataru Osawa informed that JICA is funding in the EZ under the “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Promotion Project” and the project will also finance the Japanese and other FDI companies for their short-term, midterm and long- term capital investment and operations to promote investment in Bangladesh.
He hoped that higher level industries will be set up in the EZ as all sorts of modern facilities will be ensured there.
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, Japanese business community has started to pay attention to Bangladesh as the next destination of investment.
The zone is expected to attract US$20 billion worth foreign investments, most of which will be from Japan. The investment is likely to play an important role in creating employment and also in transferring technologies to this country. The zone will have an appropriate recycling plant to remove industrial wastes.
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.