Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka (MCCI) hosted a dissemination seminar on the One Stop Service (OSS) of Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) at MCCI’s Gulshan office on Wednesday (Apr 6). Sirazul Islam, Executive Chairman, BIDA led the discussion from the BIDA side. The goal of the session was to familiarize the business community with the activities of the OSS.
The Executive Chairman of BIDA and his team were warmly received by a team from the members of the MCCI’s Board of Directors led by its President, Md. Saiful Islam. The other members of the team were: Senior Vice-President Kamran T. Rahman, members of the Board of Directors Syed Tareque Md. Ali, Ms. Uzma Chowdhury, Rubaiyat Jamil, Golam Mainuddin, and the Secretary-General and CEO Mr. Farooq Ahmed.
The MCCI President appreciated this initiative by BIDA to bring everything under one umbrella. He believed BIDA will get the desired momentum and earn confidence of the local and foreign investors.
Jibon Krishna Saha Roy, Director, BIDA gave a presentation and highlighted how businesses could take advantage of the OSS platform. OSS allowed the pertaining services can be done remotely, including making the payments. Currently, OSS offers 58 services of 19 organizations/agencies.
Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) had introduced OSS in 2018 in order to provide essential services in connection with investment facilitation. OSS focuses on several regulatory, compliance, and value-added services through a single window. It will ultimately become the point of contact between the Government and investors for investment related services.
An open discussion took place after the presentation. Questions were raised about sector-specific registrations, declaration of local and foreign sale levels, unit-wise registrations of companies, facilitating trade and environment related licenses, etc. BIDA officials confirmed that local and foreign sales levels could be amended later in the way the company required. They also confirmed to be working on the unit-wise registration.
The MCCI President highlighted the need to have 3 to 5-year validity for trade and environmental related licenses. This will enhance the ease of doing business. In the current context, we only have one-year licenses available. This hampers the ease of doing business. He also proposed outsourcing the services of regulatory body inspectors to ensure the overall quality and speed of inspections.
The BIDA Executive Chairman emphasized on going digital and its significance in making the business and investment process easier and faster in Bangladesh. He, however, mentioned that most of the services taken from OSS were of BIDA and not of the other agencies. He encouraged the private sector to seek all the services and use the full convenience offered by OSS.
Both sides appreciated the dissemination session and expressed that such exchange of views could help BIDA in familiarizing the services offered to the private sector.
The event ended with a vote of thanks from Kamran T. Rahman, Senior Vice-President, MCCI.
– Press release
