The government should hand over the management of its losing concerns to the private sector in a bid to bring profitability to state-owned enterprises, said analysts yesterday.
The experts expressed their concern over the state-owned enterprises (SoE) at a seminar that highlighted roles of privatisation in industrialisation, organised by the Privatisation Commission at the LGED auditorium in Dhaka.
“The country can benefit from privatising management without transferring the ownership of assets,” said Syed Jaglul Pasha, director of the Privatisation Commission.
“It will bring efficiency to the losing SoEs.”
Mirza Abdul Jalil, chairman of the commission, said the government is committed to saving the SoEs through privatisation. The commission is working to accelerate the process and make it simple, he said.
SA Samad, executive chairman of the Board of Investment, stressed the need to strengthen the commission's power and legal authority, following the example of Malaysia.
Inam Ahmed Chowdhury, former chairman of the commission, urged the government to simplify the sold-property handover process and make a sector-wise plan.
The Privatisation Commission has so far privatised 75 state enterprises. According to the commission's review report released in June, 44 of the 75 enterprises are profit-making, 16 are going into production and the other 15 were closed.
At the time of privatisation, the 75 enterprises had 31,000 employees; currently, about 90,000 employees are working there. The privatised enterprises had 1,026 acres of land, which are yet to be used fully.