Merge investment agencies, yes, but first fix the system around them

The government has reportedly grown more cautious in merging Bangladesh’s investment agencies. The early impulse to gather several bodies under one roof has now given way to a phased plan: start with the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) and the Public-Private Partnership Authority (PPPA), then decide what to do with Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA), Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA), Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC), and the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA). While this is a better place to begin, it is still only a beginning.

The frustration that initially led to the reform drive is understandable. Anyone who has sat across from a confused investor knows it: too many doors, too many approval paths, too many competing interpretations of who is responsible. BIDA and BEZA have built one-stop services for the permits they control. This is a genuine improvement, but confusion often remains. Land, environment, power, and sectoral licences still cut across multiple bodies. When decisions stall over repeated paperwork or inconsistent incentives, it is the country that ultimately pays the price.

So the instinct behind the planned merger is sound, but merging alone is not the solution. Placing institutions under one umbrella does not automatically dissolve confusion—sometimes, it only brings confusion from outside the building to inside it.

BIDA, PPPA, BEZA, BEPZA, BSCIC, and BHTPA are not six versions of the same office. They carry different legal mandates, assets, capabilities, and cultures. BIDA promotes and facilitates investment. PPPA structures public-private partnership projects that require financial modelling, risk allocation, and long-term contract discipline. BEZA and BEPZA manage economic and export processing zones. BSCIC harbours a small-industry legacy. BHTPA focuses on technology investment. Therefore, a factory investor, a PPP concessionaire, and a tech firm do not need the same service.

The strongest case for a phased merger, therefore, is not political convenience; it is institutional rationality. However, BIDA and PPPA may be natural early partners, but PPP project development is not routine investor servicing. If that specialised capability is diluted inside a general agency, the country may lose a function it genuinely needs. The same caution applies to BEPZA, which is often regarded as one of the more effective institutions in Bangladesh’s investment landscape. A functioning system should not be casually dismantled because a new organogram looks tidier.

A merger changes who controls investor pipelines, land data, incentive recommendations, and access to decision-makers. When reform reshuffles such branches of authority, internal resistance should not be dismissed as an expression of turf protection. As scholar M. Lynne Markus observed, people often resist not change itself but the redistribution of power that comes with it. Some objections protect duplication. Others flag real operational risks. Serious reform must tell the difference.

Before any nameplates change, five questions need clear answers. First, what should be centralised? Investor entry, aftercare, and national promotion may suit a common platform, but zone management and PPP structuring need protected units.

Second, who has final authority? If the new body only collects complaints but depends on old agencies for decisions, it becomes a forwarding desk.

Third, how will data be integrated? Officials should not ask investors for information the government already holds.

Fourth, how will expertise be preserved? Specialists should not become general administrators. And finally, how will success be measured? Clearly not by agencies being merged, but by faster approvals, fewer repeated documents, and more predictable decisions.

Having worked in Bangladesh’s investment space, I have seen one lesson repeat itself: investors do not judge reform by lofty announcements. They judge it by whether their problem gets solved without being passed from desk to desk.

Bangladesh should, therefore, pursue this reform with the seriousness it deserves. Fragmentation has lasted too long in our investment landscape. But we must not confuse consolidation with capability. A phased merger is sensible, but phasing alone is not a strategy. Having a single umbrella for investment, however it is rolled out, is not enough; having an accountable system to support it is what will ultimately determine whether this reform will improve our investment climate or merely rearrange the surrounding bureaucracy.

S M Sabbir Hussain is international business doctoral researcher at University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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