The government wants to allow local private companies to invest abroad, considering the country's economic strength, said a finance ministry top official yesterday.

“The finance ministry is ready to allow local companies to invest abroad, but the central bank has strong reservations about it,” said Md Eunusur Rahman, secretary to the bank and financial institutions division of the finance ministry.

“However, we will take the issue to the cabinet meeting on finance soon for a decision,” Rahman said at a discussion on 'ease of doing business and trade facilitation' at the commerce ministry.

Capital accounts are not convertible as per the Bangladesh foreign exchange law, which means that no individual or company can invest abroad without the prior approval of Bangladesh Bank (BB).

The central bank allows local companies to invest in foreign countries on a case-to-case basis and has already permitted several companies to do so.

But recently, BB has turned down the proposals of some companies to invest abroad, especially to some African countries and Vietnam.

At the discussion, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed instructed the officials of different ministries, departments and agencies concerned for removing trade barriers and to form separate taskforces.

Different business chambers and trade bodies like the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce would also be included in the taskforces, the minister added.

In the last Doing Business report released in October, Bangladesh was ranked 176th out of 189 economies across the world. Only Afghanistan (183rd position) among the eight South Asian countries came in lower than Bangladesh, while Bhutan topped the list in the 73rd position.

The minister also asked officials to make business procedures paperless and digitise the laws and policies to cut costs, time and steps needed for obtaining government permission in doing business.

Kazi M Aminul Islam, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, said businesses need to cross 13 stages to start a new venture in Bangladesh, while it is only three stages in New Zealand.

“Our target is also to reduce the number of stages to 3 to ease business procedures, like in Singapore or Korea.”

M Khaled Iqbal, chairman of the Chittagong Port Authority, said Chittagong Port handles more than 92 percent of export and import volumes and 98 percent of containerised cargoes every year.

Chittagong port was ranked 76th among the 100 top ports across the world for handling cargoes.

In 2016, the port handled 2.35 million TEUs (Twenty Equivalent Units) of cargo, which was 2 million TEUs in 2015 and 1 million TEUs in 2008.

Iqbal said the port authority is developing a bay terminal near Halishahar in Chittagong on 10km of reclaimed char on the Bay Bengal, mainly to reduce the pressures on Chittagong Port. It is also working to develop a small port at Mirershorai and a bay terminal at Patenga, he said.

The port authority is working to deliver services round the clock, he added.

Md Nojibur Rahman, chairman of the National Board of Revenue, said the customs and taxation systems have been digitised to ease the business processes. “Digitisation will reduce corruption and harassment for businessmen.”