Bangladesh should focus on raising awareness on impact investment in the next five years, said Lokman Hossain Miah, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (Bida).

"We should also focus on attracting impact investment as well as building capacity of impact investment managers," he said.

He was speaking at an event titled "International Impact Investment Summit-Impact InveSTART" organised by the National Advisory Board (NAB) at the Bida office in Dhaka's Agargaon today.

The NAB is hosting the event to mark the national impact investment day on November 10. The NAB acts as the advisory committee to guide the development of impact investment in Bangladesh.

AMA Muhith, former finance minister, launched the concept of impact investment publicly in Bangladesh on November 10 in 2016.

It is also crucial to conduct research to compare emerging economics and encourage global impact investors to support ready projects in the country, Miah added.

Bangladesh launched the National Impact Investment Strategy and Action Plan in August 2022, he said. "We thank the Embassy of Switzerland and Build Bangladesh for their support."

Bangladesh is among the very countries in the world that has a National Impact Investment Strategy, which is aligned with the government's eighth five-year plan, he said.

Arastoo Khan, chair of the NAB Trust, also spoke at the event.