Govt Plans Flagship IT Park in Gazipur Hi-Tech

Gazipur: The government has taken initiatives to transform the long-neglected Gazipur Hi-Tech Park into a 'flagship' IT industry park. To utilize the vast unused land, the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) is resolving long-standing infrastructure, road, land, and power issues. Minister for Posts, Telecommunications & IT and Science & Technology, Fakir Mahtab Anam, revealed these plans after inspecting the country's first hi-tech park in Kaliakair on Saturday (August 8) as part of evaluating the 180-day action plan implementation.

During the visit, the Minister stated, "Our Honorable Prime Minister is providing many facilities regarding electric vehicles, and we will tell foreigners that if you manufacture electric vehicles in our country, you will get huge tax facilities. We are encouraging electric vehicles to come here. For this reason, if anyone comes, we are ready to give them land."

Reiterating the government's commitment to encouraging investment, the Minister added, "Although many have taken allocations for some spaces, they have not started projects. The reasons why they have not started work will be found out soon. Their difficulties will be identified. We will try to solve any difficulties for those who are in production. And we will also talk to those who are in the under-developed stage. Because 'our Prime Minister is pushing to bring investors.' I feel we need to be more attentive to this park. We will pay special attention to building frontier technology industries like AI, EV, and Robotics."

He further noted, "This is a very prospective place. The Prime Minister has urged to bring investment to every hi-tech park." Addressing project statuses, the Minister initially mentioned that 40 projects are already operational in Kaliakair Hi-Tech Park, 17 are under construction, and 18 have not done any work yet; hence they will be called soon. He warned that if negligence is found, alternative actions will be considered, stressing that no land can be left idle and must be utilized.

At the meeting, Managing Director of BHTPA, Md. Fazlur Rahman, informed that land or space has been allocated to a total of 85 institutions in Kaliakair Hi-Tech Park so far, including 7 foreign entities. Among the 85, 40 institutions have already started business or production activities, 28 are under construction, and another 17 will begin construction soon.

The Managing Director further stated that total investment proposals in the park amount to approximately $1.636 billion, of which nearly $283 million (approx. BDT 3,245 crore) has already been invested. Meanwhile, the government has spent over BDT 500 crore on basic infrastructure development. Notably, investment proposals worth about $629 million have come from 7 companies based in China, Japan, India, South Korea, and the USA. He added that within one month of taking charge, two stakeholder meetings were held to ensure no hurdles exist for investing in Bangladesh and to attract new investments.

Gazipur-1 MP Md. Mojibur Rahman, Gazipur District Commissioner and District Magistrate Md. Nurul Karim Bhuiyan, Kaliakair Assistant Commissioner (Land) and Executive Magistrate Ms. Shamsun Nahar Shila, alongside senior BHTPA officials, were present. Following the meeting, the Minister inspected the Smart Technologies laptop factory, Honor mobile factory, Sony Bravia TV manufacturing factory, and the Fiber@Home office.

//DBTech/IH/MSI//