—Brig Gen Qazi Abidus Samad—

Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh begins with a vision and then entails surviving through endurance what does it take to become a successful entrepreneur in the country?

We have a lot of stories where people have risen as top entrepreneurs braving insurmountable odds. We now have successful entrepreneurs in the fields of manufacturing, consumer goods, asset development, health services, and many other fields.

There are a few who are multitalented and have ventured into a host of businesses covering a wider domain of multidisciplinary activities.

They are the ones who didn’t settle for a petty job or small business of buying and selling. Rather, with enviable energy and indomitable courage to take risks, they explore their area of choice to invest, nurture their dreams, start with small manufacturing, and gradually expand.

They went into internal and international trading, from smaller to larger ventures taking risk all the way. Vision, innovation, resilience, and more than anything an insatiable appetite for growing was all that sustained such entrepreneurs in our country.

ACQUIRING LAND

In a resource scarce land like ours, it has always been a tough journey. Land is so scarce, whereas one needs a big chunk for industrial outfits. One may find some waste land lying idle fringed by some habitation.

The moment you step in, people notice and once you start to do something with it, the locals have already got the message. There will be middlemen, local influential people and politicians all will come running.

Groups will gather to send a message that anything you would like to do, it has to be through them. They will go out of their way to help, provided you walk their way and give each of them a slice of the prize.

Rivals will come, warning against the others and telling you to ignore the rest of the groups if you’d like a smooth purchase. They will present all the credentials to prove that they are the ones close to the party in power.

After a lengthy process on ground, in the land department and registration office, your luck may still run out when to your utter shock even more claimants arrive trying to prove their lineage as a grandchild of someone who had sold you a chunk. You will have to spend an additional sum to settle before you can finally go ahead.

BUREAUCRACY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Then comes other important issues of getting power and gas supply which all are much more expensive than one finds on paper. A stubborn entrepreneur has to go ahead facing whatever comes his way. There are many who have to build a good length of road and other infrastructure at their own cost.

If you are lucky, all will go smoothly when you face many other agencies such as the ministry of environment, the local government, ministry of industries, the river commission etc. The cost involved will always exceed your estimated budget. You have to spend money at every step even if everything goes well.

The import of capital machinery, raw material, spares all are but big hassles. If you are in the business, you get used to it and employ a large outfit to get you going whenever you are stuck. Customs, NBR, and all agencies work as hurdles, not facilitators.

At the end of the day all expenditures, hidden or transparent, add up to your cost of business.

NEED FOR PROTECTION

The local law and order situation has a tremendous impact on doing business. Bringing in construction materials, giving contracts to firms for building your infrastructure, are all subject to be influenced by local hooligans who have allegiances to the political party in power.

After you are already in the business, your industrial waste products are their next target which could be a business of sizable amount. You have no freedom of choice but to give in to the demand of the most powerful local group. It is unfortunate that though there are government agencies such as industrial police and riverine police, you happen to get no support whatsoever from them.

There could be a report published that entrepreneur X is a river grabber. On the ground there may be a good number of industries on the same shoreline, but the allegation of grabbing is only against X. Many industrialists are having their own media houses which are used to downplay their rivals.

FINDING REAL VISIONARIES

There are entrepreneurs who don’t have assets abroad. All they have is investment in the country along with all their family members living here. Building an empire on foreign land has never been on their agenda.

Now is the time to encourage entrepreneurs who are genuinely working for the people and the country. It is for the sake of our survival, our lifeline, economy and business that we need to stand by them.

Now what could be some criteria to judge the genuineness of a conglomerate doing business in the country? Their total investment in the country, annual turnover, job creation, production range, declared investment abroad, assets abroad, contribution to the economy in terms of job creation, and export earnings could be some of the fields to categorize investors in the country.

It is very easy for the media or any vested quarter to come up with allegations of wrong doings against a business firm, ruin its reputation and create an environment for the business to close down. But we must weigh the consequences, both long and short term.

Promoting entrepreneurship in Bangladesh is a matter of fighting impending job losses, scarcity of essentials, and the ultimate downturn of our economy before it becomes irreversible.

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Brigadier General Qazi Abidus Samad, ndc, psc (Retd) is a freelance contributor.