DHAKA: The participants at an international Dialogue held in UN headquarters conversed on a consensus that the Public Private Partnership (PPP) would be critical to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The day-long dialogue titled “Global PPP initiatives in post 2015: Financing Development Projects” was held on Wednesday to find out ways to increase financing to achieve post-2015 SDGs in the developing countries (LCDs).

The program jointly organized by the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN, a non-resident Bangladeshi organization Global NRB USA and a US-based consulting and event management company FICS.

Experts consider the SDGs are being framed as the transition of the MDGs that were adopted in 2000 with a target to achieve eight social goals by 2015 mostly in the LDCs.

The post-2015 SDGs will be adopted at the UN summit, to be held from September 25 to 27 in New York. Some 169 targets under 17 goals is expected to be finalized, which would be implemented in developed, developing and least developed countries within a span of 15 years up to 2030.

Presided over by the permanent representative of Bangladesh Dr AK Abdul Momen, the morning session was participated by the State Minister for Health Zahid Maleque, president of FICS USA Tafazzul Karim, representative of the UN development policy and analysis division William Van der Geest, management consultant Dr Mahbubul Joarder, representatives of the UN member states, UN officials, entrepreneurs and international experts.

Urging foreign businesspeople to invest more in Bangladesh, the state minister elaborated the scopes and opportunities that are prevailing in Bangladesh for FDI, said a press release issued by he permanent mission of Bangladesh in UN.

He said that Bangladesh been has proved as a vibrant economy which has been resilient to global economic recession. It has maintained 6.2 percent GDP growth rate on average since 2009 with a market of more than 55 million people.

“Infrastructure, textile, garments, food processing, ceramics, leather, ICT, pharmaceutical raw materials is the prospective sectors for FDI,” he added.

Zahid Malique further said, services sector, including hotel, hospital, and human resource development initiatives would be potential PPP projects. He said, the government is creating scopes for more investment in the EPZs and economic zones are being developed for accommodating more foreign investment.

Plenty of the available workforces is an additional strength to attract labor-intensives industries, the state minister added.

Dr AK Momen said that Bangladesh is successful in achieving MDGs without sufficient ODA and ready to take challenge to implement the upcoming SDGs as the government has targeted to convert Bangladesh as a middle-income country by 2021 and at the stage of developed world by 2041.

To ensure successful achievement of SDGs especially for the LDCs, Dr AK Momen outlined a number of measures to be taken by the developed and emerging economies, including substantial increases of meaningful ODA, awarding duty-free and quota-free market access to all products of LDCs, reducing cost of migration and remittance transfer, increasing FDI, strengthening South-South cooperation and implementing PPP projects.

Appreciating the economic development of Bangladesh, William Geest said, PPP projects would be very effective in Bangladesh for faster infrastructure development, better project implementation and generate additional revenue for the government. At the same, there are some risks, including maintaining continued finance, attracting private sector and lengthy appraisal procedure which are to be overcome to achieve the SDGs.

The afternoon session was jointly co-chaired by Dr Momen and the permanent representative of South Korea Oh Joon.

The participants identified that the smaller projects, especially in the service sector would be appropriate for Bangladesh to leap the country a one-step forward to achieve the SDGs within the timeline.

The daylong brainstorming sessions were concluded with a dinner at Bangladesh Mission that hosted by the organizers which was also attended by the president of the 69th session of the UNGA Sam Kutesa.

In a brief statement, Sam Kutesa urged the private sector to take the SDGs as an investment opportunity in PPP or in other forms as the goals are ambitious and transformational to build a new world by 2030.

BDST: 1234 HRS, APR 16, 2015
RS/RR