Bangladesh Economic & Infrastructure Development - Updates & Discussions

[Bilal9]

Lol.....should try to make some cars first. It's unbelievable that a country of 160 million have no car manufacturer.

Dhirey Bothsho dhirey.

We did not have a large enough market for automobiles historically (other than motorcycles) and our situation mirrored that of Vietnam - both formerly third world countries. You can't just set up auto manufacturing from scratch (even from CKD kits) if there is not huge demand. Add to that the powerful local lobbies of second hand car importers (plus price advantage there) and you can see why we have no manufacturing in that sector. But things are changing- and fast.

We cannot compare our situation to India's. They used to be a closed economy (license raj) and eventually opened up only very recently. Their market is eight times larger - so demand and manufacturing logistics (even in a Kanjoosi market situation) were (and are) very different for manufacturing from scratch.

Govt. and private automobile plants in Bangladesh have assembled CKD kits since the early 60's and today we have bus/truck and private vehicle assembly by quite a few auto majors, including brands like Hino, Isuzu and Mitsubishi. The latest is PHP who assembles the Proton Preve among other vehicles.

For Vietnam, "All currently produced models are designed abroad by foreign brands, and many rely on knock-down kit production. Due to high import taxes on automobiles, the Vietnamese government protects domestic manufacturing. Although Vietnam is a member of the ASEAN Free Trade Area, automobile imports fall under an exception. Since January 1 2018, the 30% import tax has been discontinued as part of ASEAN agreements.[1] Currently, the Vietnamese motor industry is not deemed competitive enough to make exports feasible. As of April 2018, 85% of car sales in Vietnam were produced domestically from CKD kits.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_Vietnam#Vinfast

 

[Bilal9]

Bangladesh is the pioneer and leader in environmentally sensitive ship recycling in South Asia.

 

[The Ronin]

Teletalk to invest USD656m in network expansion
5 Nov 2018

Bangladesh

Bangladeshi cellco Teletalk is reportedly in the midst of developing five projects worth BDT55.54 billion (USD656 million) to expand its networks, by deploying 6,800 new sites and upgrading around 5,500 existing sites. Shahab Uddin, managing director of the state-owned operator, told The Daily Star: ‘We are trying to improve our network and service quality with limited resources and at the same time are trying to manage funds from different sources to expand it.’ The company will invest BDT9.87 billion of its own funds to deploy 1,500 2G/3G towers in rural areas, with 1,100 4G sites to be deployed in district headquarters (550) and Dhaka (550). Mr Uddin said that the towers established in Dhaka will be commercially launched ‘soon’. Further, the government has provided the cellco with a loan of BDT6.75 billion for the rollout and upgrade of around 1,700 towers, though Teletalk is seeking a further BDT32.82 billion from the state to build 4,000 towers for 3G/4G network expansion. Here Shahab Uddin commented: ‘It would give us a boost if the government approves the project.’ Another programme will see the deployment of solar powered towers via an Indian credit of BDT4.25 billion, while the BDT1.84 billion from the social obligation fund will be used for network expansion in the country’s wetlands in north east Bangladesh (i.e. the haor areas). Meanwhile, LG U+ has offered Teletalk a commercial loan of USD1.2 billion for infrastructure development and improvement of its core network, on the condition that Teletalk ensures 4G coverage in 98% of Bangladesh’s geographical area via 11,275 LTE-enabled towers.

Bangladesh,Teletalk, Wireless, LTE

https://www.telegeography.com/produ...AKBBm1UUz12Ara1Xqtn5s6BwIkvqusDucnCAS0OIJ0SUg

 

[Bilal9]

PHP Float Glass Environment Friendly Initiative & Plantation Project Documentary

DBL Group Corporate Video (yarn and textiles). This company is among several who have introduced robotic logistics in local ceramics and other types of manufacturing (see footage at 9:59).

 

[bête noire]

LG U+ has offered Teletalk a commercial loan of USD1.2 billion for infrastructure development and improvement of its core network, on the condition that Teletalk ensures 4G coverage in 98% of Bangladesh’s geographical area via 11,275 LTE-enabled towers.

Wow, why not take this offer?

 

[Bilal9]

Wow, why not take this offer?

I believe there may be a catch in the fine print. You don't need LG to provide your 5G network infra, Huawei or ZTE in China are the primary suppliers nowadays, we can go directly to those guys.

They have boiled cell tower coverage and switching equipment down to a fine art.

Everything is pre-packaged, modular, standardized and ready to go (sometimes containerized in 40 ft.containers).

 

[Bilal9]

Padma Bridge latest update videos,

All 108 sub-zillas to be connected by metalled roads and maintained,

Rooppur Powerplant components have arrived, local logistics support provided by Avant Logistics Bangladesh. Interesting Video!

Transport logistics plan

Equipment: Melt localization device and General cargo
Route: port of Novorossiysk, port of S-Petersburg, Russian Federation - Ruppur NPP, Republic of Bangladesh Volume of cargo: 6 800 FT
Main oversize and heavy cargo: - Double casing, 667*667*581cm, 146 975 kg. - Cassette of 1 type: 530*530*115cm, 27 547 kg. - Cassette of 2 type: 566*566*191cm, 40 740 kg. - Cassette of 3 type: 566*566*179cm, 60 620 kg. - Cassette of 3 type: 566*566*179cm, 60 620 кг. - Thermal protection of housing flange: 590*590*135cm, 20 767 kg. - Console: 915*455*263cm, 74 940 kg – 2 items.
Scope of work: Delivery of priority equipment (5 802 m3) by sea from the port of St. Petersburg to the port of Mongla / Chittagong, PRB, road transportation to the construction site. Delivery of large-sized heavy-weight equipment for the melt localization device by sea from the port of Novorossiysk to the port of Mongla / Chittagong, PRB, transshipment to barges and delivery to the river port on the Padma river, road transportation to the construction site. Organization of a Charter flight for delivery of large-size heavy equipment of the melt localization device from Ulyanovsk to the airport of Dhaka, PRB, road delivery of equipment to the construction site.

 

[Bilal9]

Girders are transported to the construction site for an overpass that aims to reduce traffic congestion on the Dhaka-Mawa Highway in the Jurain area.

 

[Bilal9]

Couple of interesting videos that tell you all about the Rooppur Nuclear power plant construction project.

These videos outline the brutal construction process in a hostile terrain and how thousands of people and hundreds of pieces of equipment still work round the clock, day and night to ensure electricity to every house in Bangladesh.

Interesting Videos!

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Latest Business Report

 

[Bilal9]

JCX Business Tower, Bashundhara

Status as of November 2018

Grameen Telecom Trust Tower, Mirpur

13+2B office building for GTT

CAAB HQ,Airport Road

 

[Bilal9]

Chittagonians can call this place a true deli hangout in the American style

Regalo

 

[Bilal9]

Dhaka Metrorail latest progress

Ruppur Nuclear plant latest status

 

[Bilal9]

Beginning Of New Era !!! Honda Inaugurates New Motorcycle Factory In Bangladesh
Wasif Anowar

Bangladesh Honda Pvt Ltd officially inaugurated Bangladesh Honda Motorcycle Manufacturing Factory in Bangladesh. This is a historic moment for the motorcycle industry in Bangladesh. The new Honda Factory is situated at Abdul Momen Economic Zone, Gazaria, Munshiganj, Bangladesh.

Honda is one of the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Other then motorcycles Honda also builds cars, robots, generators, and airplanes. BHL is a joint venture between Honda (Japan) which owns 70% of the share while Bangladesh Steel & Engineering Corporation owns the rest 30% of the share.

Honda was incorporated in Bangladesh on December 4th, 2012. The first commercial production was started from November 1st, 2013 with the symbol of Honda two-wheelers the ‘ WINGS’. At first, Honda will manufacture Honda Dream Neo in Bangladesh.

Honda Factory Inauguration program was started at 10:30 AM by receiving the media and other guests. In this program the following chief guest was present :

Mr. Amir Hossain Amu, Member of Parliament and Minister, Ministry of Industries;

Mr. Saber Hossain Chowdhury, Member of Parliament and Honorary President, Inter-Parliament Union (IPU);

Mr. Mrinal Kanti Das, Member of Parliament for Munshiganj-3;

Mr. Paban Chowdhury, Executive Chairman of Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA),

Mr. Mizanur Rahman, Additional Secretary, Chairman- Board of Directors’, Bangladesh Honda Private Limited and Chairman Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation;

as well as His Excellency Hiroyasu Izumi, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Bangladesh.

Representatives from Honda were Mr. Yoshi Yamane,

Senior Managing Director and Chief Officer for Production Operations of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.; Mr. Noriaki Abe,

Operating Officer and Chief Officer for Motorcycle Operations of Honda Motor Co., Ltd.; Mr. Masayuki Igarashi,

Operating Officer and Chief Officer for Asia & Oceania Regional Operations of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., and President & CEO of Asian Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and Mr. Yuichiro Ishii, Managing Director, and CEO of Bangladesh Honda Private Limited.

Honda is expanding their motorcycle business in Bangladesh to deliver products that meet customer’s needs for the growing market. The company has relocated its factory from Gazipur to the new location in Munshiganj. Honda has invested around 2.3 billion BDT on buildings, facilities & land area of 25 acres for this new factory. The factory was completed after a year later since the groundbreaking ceremony back on 5th November 2017.

Initially, 100,000 bikes will produce per year and then around 200,000 by 2021. The current factory only occupies one-third of the allocated property and will be expanded when the demand of Honda motorcycles will increase in Bangladesh. The new factory will introduce welding & painting sections for localization with technical support from Honda Motor in Japan. Initially, BHL will localize the body frame and swing arm and then gradually expand localization to other parts assembled at the new factory.

Mr. Yoshi Yamane, Senior Managing Director and Chief Officer for Production Operations of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., said, “Honda’s 2030 Vision states ‘Serve people worldwide with the joy of expanding their life’s potential’ and ‘Lead the advancement of mobility and enable people everywhere in the world to improve their daily lives.’ The inauguration of the new factory demonstrates one of the most important initiatives to realize this 2030 Vision. Bangladesh Honda will aim to develop further by providing reliable, quality products from this new factory.”

Mr. Yuichiro Ishii, Managing Director and CEO of BHL, said “As the leading motorcycle manufacturer, and with the guidance and expertise of Honda Motor in Japan, we believe that the motorcycle industry will expand and contribute to the national economy by generating more employment, developing a skilled workforce, transferring technology, encouraging the growth of a parts supplier industry, and attracting more direct foreign investment.”

Program started with recitation from Holy Quran, then there was a speech from chief guest and the CEO of BHL Mr. Yuichiro Ishii & other chief guests from the event. The Mr. Amir Hosssain Amu MP inaugurated the Honda Motorcycle factory and BHL handed the key of the first production Honda Dream Neo to Mr. Amir Hossain Amu.

Then VIP guests made a factory tour, sadly due to restriction we couldn’t take any photo or video inside the factory but we hope in the near future BHL will give us an opportunity to make a factory tour of how they make a motorcycle from scratch. Some of the dealers of BHL were also present & we managed to take an exclusive interview with Mr. Mostafizur Rashid (MD of Wings BD Ltd).

At the start, BHL will manufacture Honda Dream Neo in Bangladesh. Then later they will manufacture Honda Livo. After manufacturing 110cc segment Honda will move to manufacture 125cc segment & finally they will manufacture 150 -165 cc motorcycles. We are not sure about the time period of then they will do a full manufacturing of the full line up but with due time we will inform the bikers of Bangladesh.

Honda is a motorcycle company which started it’s journey back in 1948. Last year Honda became the number 1 motorcycle brand in the world. It sold 1.9 billion bikes worldwide in 130 countries. Currently, they have a product line up of 6 motorcycles, 1 moped & one scooter.

We are hoping that with the addition of a brand new factory Honda will soon launch some exclusive bikes in Bangladesh in the year 2019. Also, the market size of Bangladesh will be growing and the price of Honda motorcycles will also decrease after the Inauguration of Honda motorcycle factory in Bangladesh.

 

[Mage]

@Bilal9 bhai, please share news here....all these images makes it annoying to scroll down.

 

[The Ronin]

Leather industry showing rising investment graph

Investment in leather goods and footwear has been rising significantly, thanks to more and more foreign and Bangladeshi investors pumping in money as production cost has gone up in competitor countries, say industry insiders.

Moreover, Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are investing in compliant factories to produce high-quality footwear that will eventually reduce the dependence on the import of leather goods, added industry insiders.

Mohammed Nazmul Hassan, vice president of the Leather Goods and Footwear Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association of Bangladesh (LFMEAB) and managing director of Leatherex Footwear Industries Limited told The Independent, “Founded in 2000, Leatherex is a 100 per cent export-oriented leather footwear industry in Bangladesh with a production capacity of 800,000 pairs of shoes and sandals yearly.”

Leatherex is operated under technical collaboration with Japan, Italy and Taiwan, he added.

Every year, 15–20 new leather product and footwear factories were being opened in the country, he noted.

Alliance Footwear and Leather Industry Ltd yearly exports 15 lakh pairs of shoes and 10,000 leather bags. An investor from Poland was planning invest Tk 15 crore in Bangladesh, as they were wrapping up their business in China due to high wage costs, said Mahbubur Rahman, manager of Alliance Footwear and Leather Industry Ltd.

China is still the biggest leather product sourcing country in the world, but if any buyer wants to buy leather footwear from China then 17 per cent import tax would have to be given to the Chinese government.

“We export footwear at zero per cent tariff rate and that’s perhaps another reason why foreign buyers are eager to come to invest in Bangladesh,” he said.

According to the data of the Leather Goods and Footwear Manufacturers' and Exporters' of Bangladesh (LFMEAB), wages have increased in competitor countries like China by 19 per cent, followed by Vietnam, 14 per cent; India, 13 per cent; and Indonesia, 30 per cent.

Because of higher wages, a lot of foreign leather products and footwear manufacturers have been compelled to shut down their businesses in those countries, said LFMEAB officials.

Saiful Islam, president, LFMEAB, said that physical investment was coming in. For instance, Pou Chen, a leading footwear manufacturer of Taiwan, had already started operating in Bangladesh.

VKC, a famous Indian footwear manufacturer, too, had come to Bangladesh, followed by the Farida Group, footwear and finished leather manufacturer, added Islam.

The LFMEAB informed that the spade work had already started and the factory, spread over 1,00,000 sq ft, was expected to open by March 2019. The factory would have the capacity to produce approximately 3,000 pairs of shoes a day.

ECM Footwear Ltd, (ECMFL) is a 100 per cent export-oriented leather shoe manufacturing venture based in Bangladesh.

It takes Tk 80–100 crore to set up a Ready Made Garment (RMG) factory but about Tk 25¬30 crore is needed to build a footwear factory. The RMG set-up is already there in the country but the footwear industry is still untapped, said Labik Kamal, director of ECM Footwear Ltd.

So, he felt, there was a huge opportunity for the footwear industry to grow.

The domestic demand of leather footwear and goods was worth about Tk 16,000 crore but 40 per cent of the demands are met by importing goods from abroad, said LFMEAB.

The leather footwear sector registered a steady positive growth of 4.54 per cent with USD 264.28 million in the first ten months (July–November) of the current financial year (FY2018–19) compared to USD 252.81 million during the same period in FY2017–18, according to the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data.

Saiful Islam explained the reasons behind the steady growth and told The Independent that the footwear industry was maintaining growing trend because of three reasons—factories that produce footwear in Bangladesh were all environmentally compliant, meaning they conformed to environmental laws, regulations, standards.

Secondly, “We are highlighting the benefits of investment in this sector as well as the growth prospects in the longer term. As a result, in 2017–18, 20 new export-oriented footwear factories have come up and started operations in Bangladesh,” he added.

Finally, the labour cost in China was increasing. As a result, they were shifting to high-tech industries, prompting investors to move to a cost-competitive manufacturing base and Bangladesh was proving to be most lucrative option, he said.

Bangladesh exported footwear to the European Union (EU) member countries, Japan and North America.

About the challenges faced by the industry, he said, “There are a couple of challenges which need to be addressed such as reducing the lead time to 45 days, establishing more compliant footwear factories and long-term policy support.”

The leather sector was the country’s second largest export earner, mopping up over USD 1 billion and employing about one million people directly and indirectly, he added.

Competitive pricing, low labour cost and available raw material provided Bangladesh opportunities to grab the global leather market, he added.

“If long-term sustainable policy support is implemented, it's possible to achieve a growth level of 15- 20 per cent instead of 4.54 per cent,” he added.

Abdul Momen Bhuiyan, Sr. vice president of LFMEAB, too, said rising labour costs in China were prompting investors to move to cost-competitive manufacturing bases and Bangladesh was currently the most lucrative option.

He pointed to another reason, saying already Chinese investors had invested in around 15 new export-oriented footwear factories in the Chattogram Export Processing Zone (CEPZ), where they were manufacturing footwear and exporting their products abroad. This reflected the long-term growth prospects.

Bangladesh manufactured footwear for the renowned brands like Timberland shoes, Wolverine, Sterling shoes and many more brands, he informed.

“Finally, factories producing footwear in Bangladesh are environmentally compliant—they conform to environmental laws, regulations and standards,” said Abdul Momen Bhuiyan, who is also the Deputy Managing Director (DMD) of Apex Footwear Ltd.

Explaining the opportunities before this sector, Bangladesh Tanners’ Association (BTA) chairman Shaheen Ahmed said owing to the availability of raw materials, 350 million sq ft of leather is produced annually in Bangladesh. Of this amount, 20–25 per cent goes to meet the domestic demand, while the rest is exported.

The government considers "leather goods and footwear" as one of the main growth generators for the country that would help it to cross the middle-income threshold. It is now the country’s second largest export-earning industry.

According to LFMEAB, approximately, 220 tanneries, 2,500 footwear manufacturing units and 90 large firms make leather goods and footwear mainly for export.

Bangladesh exports leather goods and footwear mainly UAE, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, China, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Spain and Finland.

http://www.theindependentbd.com/pos...weClrh0pE5lveCaHts2Yyi1hN0musmLnKFa1dxmjes6KQ