DCCI President Taskeen Ahmed on Sunday said that in this new era to improve in the export, import sector, reducing logistics cost and enhancing efficiency will be critical to compete in the international market.
He said right now, Bangladesh ranks 88th out of 139 countries in the Logistics Performance Index 2023. Port congestion, customs delays, and fragmented infrastructure continue to push up logistics cost, estimated to be 15-20% of GDP, far above the global average of 8-10%, he added.
Taskeen Ahmed, President of Dhaka Chamber of Commerce & Industry (DCCI) was addressing a seminar on “Enhancing Bangladesh’s Logistic Sector for Sustainable Economic Growth” held at DCCI auditorium.
Taskeen Ahmed also said that ports are the lifeline of our trade. Chattogram and Mongla ports alone handle 92% of our international trade, contributing nearly 30% of our GDP. Upgrading these with container scanners, off-dock automation, AI-driven traffic management, and flexible port charges is essential.
Dr. M. Masrur Reaz, Chairman and CEO, Policy Exchange of Bangladesh in his keynote presentation said that in the last few decades Bangladesh has set an example in the global arena through its commendable economic progress but it was mainly dependent on a single export item that is RMG which is contributing almost 82% to our total export earnings.
“We actually failed to diversify our exportable products as well as find new export destinations that basically hover around EU, UK and USA based market destinations. In various competitive indices and sub-indices like global competitiveness index, global innovation index, global skill report, Bangladesh lags behind than its regional competitors like India, Vietnam, Japan and Cambodia”, he added.
Dr. Sheik Moinuddin, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges stressed on a multimodal transportation ecosystem consisting of road, rail, river, air, sea including information super highway to increase our competitive ability in global trade after the post-LDC era, otherwise our economy will face a big challenge.
Md. SalimUllah, Chairman, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (BIWTC) said the government has already formed a committee to re-visit the recently formulated logistics policy. He also informed that BIWTA has taken an initiative to prepare a master plan soon for the development of inland water transport logistic system in the country.
DCCI Senior Vice President Razeev H Chowdhury and Vice President Md. Salem Sulaiman were also present during the seminar.
