The government has planned to invest more in the power sector with around $50 billion earmarked for the next 5 years aiming to increase electricity generation and capacity building for transmission and distribution system, sources said.
Power Division sources said a host of countries including Russia, the United States, Germany, Japan, China, India and South Korea have shown interest to invest in Bangladesh’s power and energy sector thanks to a secured and investment-friendly environment in the country.
According to data with the division, around $20 billion was invested in the last decade to develop the power sector. During the period, the country’s power generation capacity increased to around 15,000MW and currently it stands at 19,580MW.
According to the Seventh Five-Year Plan, around 20,000MW power will be added to the national grid by 2025. The government expects that more $15 billion will be invested in the sector by 2021.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid said, “Bangladesh is an investment-friendly country and the power and energy sector here is expanding day by day. Our target is to generate 60,000 MW of electricity by 2041. So, there is a huge opportunity for investment in the sector here. Many of the countries are keen to invest here.”
A visiting eight-member delegation of Qatar, led by its State Minister for Energy Affairs Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, expressed interest in investing in a bigger way in Bangladesh’s power and energy sector at a meeting with Nasrul Hamid at the Power Division office recently.
Meanwhile, South Korea has shown interest in investing in 10 public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the aviation, rail and power sectors under government-to-government arrangements.
US giant Blackstone has shown its keenness to invest in Bangladesh. The multinational wants to build a 600MW gas-based power plant in a joint venture with a Bangladeshi company, which may further increase power generation by 1300MW.
The company has also submitted a proposal to build a 100MW solar power plant in Bangladesh.
Recently, Riyadh Cables Group, a company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has expressed its interest in investing in the power sector of Bangladesh.
On another occasion, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon expressed his government’s keenness to invest in some emerging sectors of Bangladesh like infrastructure, power, information and communication technology, construction, shipbuilding and energy for boosting business volume of the two countries.
State-owned North-West Power Generation Company Ltd signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China’s state-owned CMC to develop 500-megawatt (MW) renewable energy-based power plant projects.
Adani Wilmar Limited or AWL will set up a power plant with a generation capacity of 3,200 MW. A total of $5 billion will be invested for construction of the power plant and its transmission line.
Moreover, the company will invest $3.2 billion in new projects. Under the new investment, a solar power plant with a production capacity of 500 MW will be set up.
Earlier, the government signed a MoU with the US Company GE to build a 3600 MW LNG-based power plant.
Recently, German company Siemens has signed a MoU with the Bangladesh government to build a 3600 MW LNG-based power plant in Payra. The company is also planning to build another power plant with similar capacity at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar.
Thailand’s Investment and Economic Reforms Minister Kobsak Putrakul showed interest in investing in Bangladesh at two separate meetings with the Bangladesh Economic Zone Authority (BEZA) and Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) on May 2, 2018.