The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority withdrew an earlier announcement in which it said the government had established a formal Private Sector Advisory Council.
In the late night following Saturday, the BIDA issued a clarification, hours after issuing a statement that prime minister Tarique Rahman convened Bangladesh’s first council of private-sector entrepreneurs.
New Age reported on the basis of BIDA’s first press release, which was circulated at around 7:00PM on Saturday.
In the revised message posted on its Facebook page, the BIDA said the meeting with prime minister Tarique Rahman was convened to hear observations and recommendations from selected entrepreneurs and to help set priorities for private sector-led growth.
The authority also said that it was not a formal advisory council of the government or the prime minister.
‘The meeting had no organisational or legal basis. However, similar engagements would continue in the future,’ said the BIDA.
In its initial announcement, BIDA executive chairman Ashik Chowdhury described the council as ‘one of the key reforms proposed by BIDA’.
At the initial press release, BIDA said that the country’s nine business leaders attended the meeting with the prime minister as the first meeting of the PSAC, a formal platform for the country’s business representatives.
The nine business leaders were Arif Dowla, managing director of ACI PLC; Syed Nasim Manzur, managing director of Apex Footwear Ltd; Hafizur Rahman Khan, chairman of Runner Group; Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, chairman and CEO of PRAN-RFL Group; Ziaur Rahman, managing director of Bay Group; Abdul Muktadir, chairman and managing director of Incepta Group; Md Abdul Jabbar, managing director of DBL Group; Sohana Rouf Chowdhury, managing director of Rangs Group; and Syed Mohammad Tanvir, managing director of Pacific Jeans Group
Key policymakers, including the ministers for finance, commerce, power, energy, and mineral resources, as well as the executive chairman of the BIDA, were also present at the meeting.
However, in the subsequent statement, BIDA said that it attributed the confusion to ‘misleading information circulating on social media’.
