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Economy passing to alien hands

Special Correspondent,

The economy is slowly but steadily passing hand to the aliens at a time when the country'sruling elite remained deeply embedded to new found strategic allies to beat back nationalistand Islamist forces in domestic politics.

In the business front, the country's fragilepolitical situation is being utilised to useBangladesh as the gateway to northeast andIndian businessmen are out to capture thekey service sector and manufacturing

industries.

Leaders of BGMEA and BKMEA, two apexbodies of the garment sector slowlyspeaking out the truth. They said Indianinvestors are now buying major garmentfactories in Bangladesh.

News reports meanwhile said many British, US and Canadian businessmen of Indian originhave already bought at least 50 key garment factories of the country including the famous SQgroup, Crystal, Mustard, Hollywood, Shanta, Rose, Fortune, Trust, Ajax and such other

manufacturing plants which have the record of earning billions of dollars in export earningsannually.

Businessmen of Indian origin are also negotiating the buying of another 100 garmentfactories at the moment, senior BGMEA sources are quoted to have said in talks with thelocal press. In addition to this, there are 140 garment factories now being laid off and theymay eventually end up at the hands of foreign buyers.

BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy reportedly said such passing of hand is takingplace as part of free market economy in certain situations. He said many Indians are engagedhere at managerial levels.

Former BKMEA president Fazlul Haque reportedly said the question is not who is buying,the truth is that it is going contrary to the country's interest.

The garment sector is treated as the major contributors to the nation's economic fortunegenerating tens and thousands of jobs mainly to the poor in addition to expansion of banking,insurance, transport, ports, shipping and such other services,

Now these engines of fortunes are passing hand to aliens mainly by way of violence, arsonand vandalism.

Foreigners are also working to take control of the country's telecommunication sector bybuying big telecom companies and sharing the submarine cable system. The country's

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domestic consumer market is already in the Indian hand with over US$ 3.5 billion tradedeficit and Delhi is not willing to open its market to substantive duty free exports fromBangladesh.

Bangladesh has agreed to open the connectivity under the joint declaration with India in

Delhi in January this year.

In this background, a 21-member strong business delegation visited Bangladesh last week tohold talks with government and business leaders about how to use the mutuality to set up newinfrastructure facilities in Bangladesh to open the transit gateway from western India to itsnortheast.

Influential Congress parliamentarian and former minister responsible for development ofnortheast Moni Sankar Iyar led the delegation. During the visit he also has urged Bangladeshbusinessmen to invest in the northeast.

The Indian trade delegation visited Ashuganj where India seeks quick mobilisation ofresources to set up its port of call and develop port handling facilities. It is also in a hurry tobuild the 40 km long Ashuganj-Akhaura road to add new capacity to run heavy Indiantransport vehicles.

Delhi has sought initial permission to carry equipment for a 1000 MW power plant to theTripura state. The delegation also visited Chittagong port, assessed its present and futurehandling capacity and expressed the Indian desire to make investment in port facilities. It alsotalked about expansion of highway from port city to Tripura and Mizoram and developinginfrastructure of the Mongla port to connect it with Indian business.

There is no study or configuration about it. Moreover, what is the security arrangement orsovereignty guarantee that Bangladesh will not become a vassal state at the end.

The Indian delegation has reportedly explored to build every bit of connectivity network byroad, railway and water ways, by building bridges and dredging rivers.

Source:http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2010/07/19/news0714.htm

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