Bangladesh on cusp of industrial revolution, HSBC says in Bangladesh Market Insights 2021

[Bilal9]

I in fact went much further. You can find my posts from around 2018 about how I went along with a company which tried to build a drinking water supply business in 2017.

Investment programs, and top level policy are all fine, as everywhere where countries try to attract foreign investors.

It's a complete despair when federal level jurisdiction ends, and local politicians/regulations start, and you need to do first actions on the ground.

A UK Pakistani who lured me into the business was in total despair when it was his first time encountering an attitude "You need some permit for this, but I don't know how you get it, or even from whom. That's how it's written in the code. Sorry" from Lahore government people.

So - at the risk of inviting your ire, how easy or hard was it (compared to other countries in Asia) to pursue business opportunities in Bangladesh?

Bangladesh gets persistently low scores in 'ease of business' scores, I don't know if things are improving much.

BEZA and BIDA are two Bangladesh agencies you should have dealt with.

BIDA - Home

bida.gov.bd

BEZA at a glance « BEZA

 

[SMX 3.0]

Bhai - majority of this Indian sector is companies like Micromax and Karbonn screwing together cellphone sub-assemblies from China. and then slapping their Indian brand-name on a sticker on the casing. Those companies are a dime-a-dozen in Bangladesh too.

Micromax does what you claim Bangladeshi firms such as Walton do. SMT PCB Assembly. Watch from 1:22.

Also, there are the likes of Samsung & Foxxcon doing the same. At 140 million shipments annually (compared to 7 million of Bangladesh), the volume of local manufacture is much higher.

• Investments in India are for supplying the large markets within India for 1.4 Billion people, while Bangladesh manufacturers have started exports from the get-go and are geared for exports. Bangladesh supplies most of the market with locally manufactured white goods and appliances, imports are not really needed.

I haven't seen much data about your exports, but Walton only claims an export revenue of $1.6 million. Also, this link says that Bangladesh only exported $3.3 million worth of mobile phones compared to $3.3 billion by India.

I don't see much export success there.

• Market for TV's and refrigerators in Bangladesh are very different from that of India, the preference is for larger screen sizes above 40 inches, not 32 inch TV's.
• Bangladeshi Refrigerators need to have much larger freezer compartments to store meat, that is not the case in India.
• Refrigerator displacement in Bangladesh averages around 550 to 700 liters, that in India averages 200~300 liters.

Can you find a source for any such market survey done in Bangladesh? I couldn't find any.

From what I could find from their annual report, they sold 1.25 million refrigerators worth $326 million & 484K TV sets worth $84 million.

So the average prices are $260 for a refrigerator & $174 for TV sets. Even if you add sellers margin, it's low in comparison with what you claimed.

So It can be safely assumed that Bangladeshi market prefers lower end refrigerators & TVs. You definitely cannot get a 550 litre fridge & a 42'' TV for that price, nope.

 

[SMX 3.0]

That Walton invested at such an early stage in manufacturing aircon and household refrigerator compressors is also telling, when only a few companies in India may make those (Kirloskar? Voltas?). Walton is one of seven companies in Asia that makes household refrigerator compressors.

Hermetically sealed compressors for a refrigerator have been in production in India since 1962. I don't see how this is a major achievement though.

Even Walton doesn't dispute this. From their Annual report.

2nd in SAARC.

Another major manufacturer is Tecumseh India Pvt Ltd with an installed capacity of 4.5 million units between 2 plants.

Tecumseh Inaugurates Global Technology Centre in India

/PRNewswire/ -- Tecumseh, a global leader of innovative commercial refrigeration technologies, officially opened its state-of-the-art Global Technology Center...

www.prnewswire.com

They also have an R&D facility here, so you can pretty much say that there are Indian design inputs in refrigerator compressors manufactured elsewhere.

The fact that it takes the likes of Samsung and LG to invest $700 million for a display fab in India (with a market eight times larger than Bangladesh) and not companies like Videocon or Voltas, is telling in itself.

Tata is setting up an $820 million mobile phone components manufacturing plant on 500 acres in Tamil Nadu. Let's see what comes out of that facility.

Is there a display plant in Bangladesh? I don't think so.

Tamil Nadu agrees to Tata’s Rs 5,763-crore plan for Component Manufacturing - ELE Times

The Tamil Nadu government has cleared a proposal by Tata Electronics to set up a mobile phone components manufacturing plant

www.eletimes.com

There are at least a dozen companies that haver already committed that type of money in Bangabandhu 30,000 acre SEZ North of Chittagong and they are local ones.

You mean this?

bangabandhu sheikh mujib Shilpa Nagar Master Plan « BEZA

I found the location on Google Maps & could only see acres of land filled with what looks like sand. Looks like you are counting chickens before they hatch. Also, can you give me details of those investments?

India already manufactures $24 billion worth of mobile phones & has plans to become a major exporter (present exports $3.3 billion). Not going to make predictions or projections about this though until they realize 50% of it.

Same with semiconductors, which you asked about. Again, I will talk about it when I see it being realized.

Tata Group looking to foray into semiconductor manufacturing: N Chandrasekaran

Walton's own screens are used not only in their TV's and cellphones, but also their "Tamarind" Laptops and their Android Tablets (which they have supplied OEM to at least one brand in the US, along with their cellphones).

What's not well known is why their value addition for TVs (from their AR) is so low if they manufacture even the panels from the raw material. Or why they should even invest in one if their volumes are so low.

Also who exactly is assisting with the technology transfer? LG? Don't say it's your own proprietary technology while having a $350K R&D expenditure.

Bangladeshi universities didn't offer courses as basic as undergraduate courses in Aeronautical engineering until 2010, so I am not expecting much home-grown technological expertise.

Walton's own screens are used not only in their TV's and cellphones, but also their "Tamarind" Laptops

Walton has a market share of 15% in Bangladesh's smartphone market of roughly7 million, that's a volume of 1 million sets and revenue of ~85 million. Bangladesh laptop market is at $165 million, I don't know Walton's share though. Doesn't look like a great revenue stream.

 

[sallador saan]

You mean this?

bangabandhu sheikh mujib Shilpa Nagar Master Plan « BEZA

I found the location on Google Maps & could only see acres of land filled with what looks like sand. Looks like you are counting chickens before they hatch. Also, can you give me details of those investments?

BEZA has already received investment proposals. Wilmar of Singapore, Adani Group and Asian Paints of India, Sojitz Corporation of Japan, Nippon Steel of Japan and Yabang Group of China, wanted to invest $10 billion. Rest of the investments are from local companies.

Some companies have already started construction for their factories.

Bangabandhu Shilpa Nagar taking shape defying all odds

The Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar (BSMSN) seems to be taking shape day by day as investors have started developing the physical infrastructure of the 30,000-acre economic zone.

www.thedailystar.net

BEZA gets $20.13bn investment proposals from 153 investors

The zones authority has already allocated over 6,000 acres of land among the investors

www.dhakatribune.com

 

[Protest_again]

Hermetically sealed compressors for a refrigerator have been in production in India since 1962. I don't see how this is a major achievement though.

View attachment 769763

Even Walton doesn't dispute this. From their Annual report.

View attachment 769764

2nd in SAARC.

Another major manufacturer is Tecumseh India Pvt Ltd with an installed capacity of 4.5 million units between 2 plants.

Tecumseh Inaugurates Global Technology Centre in India

/PRNewswire/ -- Tecumseh, a global leader of innovative commercial refrigeration technologies, officially opened its state-of-the-art Global Technology Center...

www.prnewswire.com

They also have an R&D facility here, so you can pretty much say that there are Indian design inputs in refrigerator compressors manufactured elsewhere.



Tata is setting up an $820 million mobile phone components manufacturing plant on 500 acres in Tamil Nadu. Let's see what comes out of that facility.

Is there a display plant in Bangladesh? I don't think so.

Tamil Nadu agrees to Tata’s Rs 5,763-crore plan for Component Manufacturing - ELE Times

The Tamil Nadu government has cleared a proposal by Tata Electronics to set up a mobile phone components manufacturing plant

www.eletimes.com

You mean this?

bangabandhu sheikh mujib Shilpa Nagar Master Plan « BEZA

I found the location on Google Maps & could only see acres of land filled with what looks like sand. Looks like you are counting chickens before they hatch. Also, can you give me details of those investments?

India already manufactures $24 billion worth of mobile phones & has plans to become a major exporter (present exports $3.3 billion). Not going to make predictions or projections about this though until they realize 50% of it.


View attachment 769767

Same with semiconductors, which you asked about. Again, I will talk about it when I see it being realized.

Tata Group looking to foray into semiconductor manufacturing: N Chandrasekaran



What's not well known is why their value addition for TVs (from their AR) is so low if they manufacture even the panels from the raw material. Or why they should even invest in one if their volumes are so low.

Also who exactly is assisting with the technology transfer? LG? Don't say it's your own proprietary technology while having a $350K R&D expenditure.

Bangladeshi universities didn't offer courses as basic as undergraduate courses in Aeronautical engineering until 2010, so I am not expecting much home-grown technological expertise.



Walton has a market share of 15% in Bangladesh's smartphone market of roughly7 million, that's a volume of 1 million sets and revenue of ~85 million. Bangladesh laptop market is at $165 million, I don't know Walton's share though. Doesn't look like a great revenue stream.

If you start to believe the rubbish that Billi @Bilal9 puts out, next he would claim Bangladesh manufacturing is above America too. Lol.

Nothing what Bangod claim on PDF have statistical backing, just their fanciful imaginations.

 

[SMX 3.0]

BEZA has already received investment proposals. Wilmar of Singapore, Adani Group and Asian Paints of India, Sojitz Corporation of Japan, Nippon Steel of Japan and Yabang Group of China, wanted to invest $10 billion. Rest of the investments are from local companies.

Some companies have already started construction for their factories.

Bangabandhu Shilpa Nagar taking shape defying all odds

The Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar (BSMSN) seems to be taking shape day by day as investors have started developing the physical infrastructure of the 30,000-acre economic zone.

www.thedailystar.net

BEZA gets $20.13bn investment proposals from 153 investors

The zones authority has already allocated over 6,000 acres of land among the investors

www.dhakatribune.com

Was talking about investments in the electronics sector in particular but anyway... Let's see if it materializes. BD's present Annual FDI is around $2.5 billion, would see improvement if this takes off.

 

[Paul2]

So - at the risk of inviting your ire, how easy or hard was it (compared to other countries in Asia) to pursue business opportunities in Bangladesh?

Bangladesh gets persistently low scores in 'ease of business' scores, I don't know if things are improving much.

BEZA and BIDA are two Bangladesh agencies you should have dealt with.

BIDA - Home

bida.gov.bd

BEZA at a glance « BEZA

I never looked at it myself before.

I just been to Dhaka once to look for laptop bag manufacturers. It's a general observation that most nations investments programmes falter not from any formal policy being wrong, but executors on the ground being inept, uninvolved, and lazy.

I flew in, and out of US on business trips few times a year. I have an APEC card entitling me to quick entry. Half of the time I show the card, the dude at the gate makes round eyes like as if he sees the card for the first time in his life, calls all of his superiors, they examine the card, and make calls to their superiors for half an hour, and then they let me through in half of times, and in other half they kick me back to regular immigration counter after wasting my 30 minutes.

I think the one, and only country that actually had somewhat effective low-level policies investment wise was Singapore, be it a tiny statelet. China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Vietnam — everywhere a person you face for doing the most trivial things will fail you the most as a rule.

I'd say the overarching national level policies, let alone international investment programmes, matter very little in comparison to simple things like opening an office, getting tax number, company registration, hiring/firing people without having to file kilograms of legal papers. If you don't have these simple things, forget about high profile international investments.

With very dramatic recent events in my life, I believe I may explore opening a factory, or an engineering company of my own somewhere away from China once I draw my parents inheritance. South Asia is certainly one of shortlisted destinations, and I'll check that BEZA thing.

 

[PoondolotoPandalum]

@Paul2

I don't know how true this is, but one of Bangladesh's strengths in attracting investments is supposed to be a historically high return on investment, relative to most Asian Pacific states (not just South Asia).

Many foreign companies (allegedly) that have invested in Bangladesh, have said their return on investment is the highest in Bangladesh.

https://av.sc.com/corp-en/content/docs/bangladesh-social-and-economic-impact-study.pdf

Unilever, who has been manufacturing in BD for a while now, also said one of the highest ROT they received was from Bangladesh

https://www.unilever.com/Images/bangladesh-annual-report-2019_tcm244-553013_en.pdf

Samsung and a well-established (in BD, for over 20+ years) Korean apparel firm have publically said (allegedly) that one of their highest ROT was from Bangladesh. Samsungs investment has been increasing fairly rapidly in recent years as a result. Not decreasing. Bangladesh still sucks at attracting FDI, but it's going in the right direction, albeit slowly.

https://images.samsung.com/is/content/samsung/p5/global/ir/docs/2019_Business_Report.pdf

The Japanese have taken two special economic zones in Bangladesh, dedicated to Japanese investment (can't remember who exactly, perhaps someone else knows). The Japanese are among one of the strongest, most enthusiastic investors fairly recently.

The general theme is, the Government of Bangladesh is trying hard to offer other incentives to foreign investors, other than some bottom-most wage benefits. Some of those advantages are (again, allegedly)

1) Return on investment
2) Cheap electricity and gas
3) Improving infastructure (although it's an ongoing process, they look like they finally got their arse in gear)
4) Large domestic market, which is rapidly growing in purchasing power
5) Duty-free export facilities. You can bring in duty-free raw materials for exports, for example
6) Tax holidays, incentives for exports
7) Bonded warehouse licensing facilities
8) Geography, links to both India and South-East Asia. Also, the riverine composure of Bangladesh can allow easy bulk transportation via riverways

Now the finance, managment side of manufacturing isn't my specialty, so I use a lot of "allegedly", and attached some reports for references, which may either prove allegations or contradict them. I'm guessing from your background, you might be in a better position to judge.

So yea, this is what the government is trying to pitch, so take it critically. They have moved away from lower labor costs and looking to offer showcases other benefits for investing in Bangladesh. Which is a change in strategy from the past.

 

[SMX 3.0]

Kala Telugu, your people should be investing in fair and lovely more.

You should be investing more in hair colour for your elite ''Rapid Action Battalion''. Looks like this guy was an ex-gangster from a Dhaka ghetto...

 

[X-ray Papa]

I mean I don't want to turn to this. Lol. You just have to look at Bangladesh cricket team to puke.


View attachment 769928

Your entire people want to make me puke.
Ugly *** creatures, ghosh i think china should build concentration camp to protect the world from your kind.

 

[SMX 3.0]

Your entire people want to make me puke.

Last time I checked Telugus didn't have a history of 3 million of their own being slaughtered by their compatriots after being mocked as ''short dark rice eaters''. That's your historical narrative, not ours.

Maybe your former compatriots found you to be puke-worthy. I don't know, better ask them.

 

[X-ray Papa]

Last time I checked Telugus didn't have a history of 3 million of their own being slaughtered by their compatriots after being mocked as ''short dark rice eaters''. That's your historical narrative, not ours.

Maybe your former compatriots found you to be puke-worthy. I don't know, better ask them.

Thats because all of you are Indians. Northern Subhuman joins hand with Southen subhumans, why they should fight?

 

[Protest_again]

View attachment 769930

Your entire people want to make me puke.
Ugly *** creatures, ghosh i think china should build concentration camp to protect the world from your kind.

Lol. This is beneath me. I don't want to engage with cheap people.

 

[SMX 3.0]

Thats because all of you are Indians. Northern Subhuman joins hand with Southen subhumans, why they should fight?

Your country exists only because of us Raqibool. I mean how pathetic do you have to be to claim superiority when your entire existence is dependent upon us...

There are videos of your kind literally prostrating before the Indan army for liberating them. That's your ''aukaat''.

And claiming superiority while simultaneously crying about how BD establishment is subservient to India. Can't make this stuff up.

 

[X-ray Papa]

Your country exists only because of us Raqibool. I mean how pathetic do you have to be to claim superiority when your entire existence is dependent upon us...

There are videos of your kind literally prostrating before the Indan army for liberating them. That's your ''aukaat''.

And claiming superiority while simultaneously crying about how BD establishment is subservient to India. Can't make this stuff up.

Panjeet, Rendia have no part to play in our liberation. Keep your propaganda to yourself.

Lmao, Only reason your Shitty army won because we were fighting pakistan for 9 months. if Rendia is strong then why not annex West pakistan? too weak?

Lmao why dont you get your *** to dhaka, you will see how we are subservient to you.