When global manufacturers shifted capacity out of China, Vietnam treated it as an emergency opportunity. Bangladesh, despite the conferences, the panels and decades of ambition, did not just underperform. In plain words, we failed.
Vietnam planned carefully to make itself the obvious choice. Its investment and export machine reached a scale that matched the global investor mindset, driving exports to a record $405.53 billion in 2024.
Foreign investment followed, reaching a record $25.35 billion in disbursed FDI. Vietnam’s FDI sector ran a trade surplus of $50.3 billion last year, proving that a coordinated strategy allows foreign investors to export enough to pay for their imports while leaving the country with a net foreign exchange surplus.
Anchors matter. Samsung, Vietnam’s largest investor, has $23.2 billion registered and reported $54.4 billion in exports in 2024. One company created a complete ecosystem of suppliers, logistics and skills, even necessitating hospitals and universities. One anchor can lift an entire nation. But Vietnam’s real product is certainty in delivery. That reputation was earned, not proclaimed. Vietnam gave investors a simple pitch: produce here and sell globally with preferential access.
Bangladesh, by contrast, offered smoke and no fire. According to BB data, net FDI fell to a five-year low of $1.27 billion in 2024. That figure explains why investors rejected us. For years, we competed on cheap labour. I have often argued that cheap labour is a trap, not a strategy. Vietnam competed on a plan, and in the China Plus One era, the plan won.
How can we attract foreign investors when our own local investors feel exposed? If we cannot protect Bangladeshi entrepreneurs from policy shocks and administrative paralysis, why would a global investor feel safe?
Manufacturing runs on inputs, not promises. The World Bank and ADB have both pointed to tight liquidity and import obstacles as factors hampering investment. Reluctance among banks and central bank restrictions in adjusting for the impact of devaluation on working capital could trigger the next tsunami.
The US State Department 2024 statement flags a lack of financial and regulatory predictability. Multinationals dislike ambiguity around moving money and settling obligations. In Bangladesh, reality is too often negotiable, whether in approvals, compliance interpretations or road blockades. Investors do not only compare tax rates. They compare the time to deliver. Vietnam understood that business is business and time is money.
Our entrepreneurs face a harsh pattern where the system’s instinct is punitive rather than rehabilitative. Income tax is collected before manufacturing begins, and export duty drawbacks can take years to process. Industrial land clearance remains extremely difficult. Without meaningful transitional protection, pioneers struggle to survive against Chinese products during their learning curve.
Bangladesh dreams that investment will arrive because of cheap labour and its strategic location. Global capital is too sophisticated not to notice the gap between promise and delivery.
If we want to re-enter the conversation, we need less proclamation and more machinery. A practical reset must begin by proving we can protect our own investors. We must establish a transparent foreign exchange rulebook with published timelines for profit repatriation and pick core industries carefully. Packaged food, halal meat, software, electronics assembly, light engineering, agro machinery, manmade fibre and textiles, leather goods and shoes are possible candidates. The aim should be high-value-added finished goods whose raw materials can be sourced locally and whose backward linkages attract supporting industries and build specialised cities with complete ecosystems.
Next, we must pursue a trade strategy with urgency. Free trade agreement leverage allows easier market access. Finally, we must create a true one-stop solution with real authority, replacing the current stop-all solution feel desk.
Bangladesh can still win a share of the next wave. But we must stop dreaming and start accepting reality. The country now needs a plan.
The writer is the chairman of Anwar Group of Industries
