Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh and the Netherlands will explore specific investment opportunities in key sectors - agriculture, food, light engineering, water and maritime.

The issue will be discussed at the Bangladesh-Netherlands Investment Summit to be held virtually on December 8-9 to mobilize potential Dutch entrepreneurs, innovators and SMEs to invest in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh Embassy in the Netherlands, in cooperation with the Dutch Government, will host the summit, said the Embassy on Friday.

Two leading Investment Consulting firms – Light Castle Partners (Dhaka) and Larive International (Amsterdam) – are collaborating with the Embassy in this venture.

Leading Bangladeshi chambers, industry associations and agencies - BGMEA, DCCI, MCCI, CCCI, BIDA, BEZA and BEPZA are associated with the Embassy’s initiative.

The leading Dutch Government agency, Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), is also a partner.

As much as the sectors are of interest to the Dutch side, these are economically significant for Bangladesh economy’s future growth.

Unlike conventionally organized business or investment seminars or B-to-B meetings, the event will bring a set of three sector-specific, interactive webinars where the interested Dutch entrepreneurs will engage with sector-specific panelists from Bangladesh and the Netherlands to assess ways to form long-term collaboration with credible private sector partners in Bangladesh.

Anyone interested can watch the (virtual) Summit proceedings that will be livestreamed from the Bangladesh Embassy in the Netherlands’ Facebook page (facebook.com/bangladeshembassyTheHagu) as also the pages of the Bangladeshi partners, simultaneously.

Following the investment webinars, on December 10, the Embassy and Light Castle Partners (Bangladesh) and LaRive (Netherlands) would be launching a first-ever, illustrative study on Dutch-Bangladesh economic engagements, to date.

The study would highlight key accomplishments in various economic fields as also share indicate possible areas of cooperation between private sectors of Bangladesh and the Netherlands.

Over the past five decades, Bangladesh enjoys seamless political ties and economic engagements with the Netherlands.

Beyond ODA, there is now growing potential for Dutch involvement in various fields in Bangladesh through Dutch knowledge, innovation, technological products and solutions within global supply chains.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina paid a visit to the Netherlands in 2015.

The Netherlands is the 4th largest origin country for FDI to Bangladesh and 7th largest export destination in Europe for Bangladeshi goods, said the Bangladesh Embassy in The Hague.

In 2019-20, Bangladesh exports to the Netherlands stood at around Euro 1.25 billion.