Bangladesh Proposes Tk 661 Crore Project to Merge All OSS Portals into BanglaBiz

Dhaka, July 28, 2026 — Foreign and local investors in Bangladesh may soon say goodbye to years of red tape as the government moves to supercharge its BanglaBiz portal with a Tk 661.50 crore project designed to deliver hassle-free, fast-track approvals from a single-entry point. Awaiting final approval from the Prime Minister's Office, the initiative aims to bring all investor-related services under a single digital umbrella by 2030, streamlining everything from initial business registration to final clearances. 🚀

🤝 Under the plan, the government will integrate all major investment agencies into the BanglaBiz platform, including:

• 🏢 Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA)
• 🏭 Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA)
• 🛢️ Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA)
• 🌾 Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC)
• 🌐 Other relevant government agencies providing investment-related services

📜 Project Status and Approval Process

🏛 Nahian Rahman Rochi, Executive Member and Head of Business Development at BIDA, said the second phase will bring a wider range of facilities for investors and integrate a significantly larger number of government services into the BanglaBiz platform. He confirmed that the BanglaBiz project has already been included in the Annual Development Programme Green Page, with the Development Project Proposal (DPP) submitted and currently awaiting approval from the Prime Minister's Office.

📊 BIDA officials said a project scrutiny committee held a meeting last month to finalise the proposal titled "BanglaBiz Portal: Single Entry Point for Investment Services". An inter-ministerial committee is currently assessing the technical and financial feasibility of the proposal before it moves to the PMO for final approval.

📋 According to BIDA officials, the plan is to integrate the most critical and frequently used investment and business services into BanglaBiz over the next nine to 12 months. The remaining services will be added in phases, depending on the digital readiness of relevant government agencies and progress in inter-agency service integration. The government aims to digitise all investment-related services through the portal by 2030.

📈 Phased Implementation Approach

📊 The BanglaBiz project is structured in multiple phases, each building on the previous one to expand the platform's coverage and capabilities:

✅ Phase 1 (Launched February 2026): Introduction of the Business Starter Pack, allowing entrepreneurs to access essential services needed to start a business through a single-entry application process. This initial phase focused on the most common and high-demand services for new businesses.

🚀 Phase 2 (In Progress): Expansion of the platform with Single Sign-On (SSO) functionality, more comprehensive Know Your Approvals (KYA) service, and integration of a wider range of government services and approvals. This phase represents the major leap towards the unified portal vision.

🌐 Phase 3+ (Through 2030): Continuous addition of remaining services based on agency digital readiness, with the goal of full digitisation of all investment-related services by 2030.

📜 The project's original master plan set 2030 as the target for full implementation. However, the platform is designed to evolve continuously, with new services and features to be added in line with user demand, business needs, and technological advancements.

🏛 Finance Minister's Vision

🤝 In his budget speech, the Finance Minister articulated the strategic vision behind the BanglaBiz initiative:

"BanglaBiz has been launched as a single digital platform for uninterrupted business approval services, aimed at providing investors with faster, predictable, coordinated and transparent government services."

📊 The emphasis on faster, predictable, coordinated, and transparent services reflects the government's recognition that the existing fragmented approach to investment approvals has been a major barrier to both foreign and domestic investment in Bangladesh. Investors currently navigate multiple portals, submit redundant documentation, and face unpredictable timelines — all of which contribute to Bangladesh's relatively low ranking in global ease of doing business indices.

📱 Three-Day Approval Target

✅ Officials said the goal is to enable businesses to complete all required initial registrations and approvals within three working days, allowing them to begin operations much sooner. This represents a dramatic improvement over the current situation, where investors often wait months or even years to obtain all necessary clearances.

📜 Jibon Krishna Saha Roy, Director General at BIDA, described the strategic ambition of the platform in clear terms:

"We call it the Bangladesh Investment Portal. We have already started the first phase. Once the transition is complete, there will no longer be separate portals — only BanglaBiz."

📊 This consolidation represents a fundamental restructuring of how the government interacts with investors, eliminating the siloed approach that has historically characterised Bangladesh's investment facilitation landscape.

🆔 Unique Business ID (UBID)

📜 Officials said that as part of its long-term roadmap, the government also plans to introduce a Unique Business ID (UBID) for every enterprise. The identifier will enable authorities to track a business throughout its lifecycle — from establishment and operation to expansion. Officials believe the UBID would significantly reduce the need for businesses to repeatedly submit the same information and documents to different government offices.

📊 The UBID concept represents a fundamental shift from the current system where each agency maintains its own registration identifier, requiring businesses to manage multiple IDs across different government systems. A single UBID would serve as the master identifier, with all agency-specific IDs linked to it — enabling seamless data sharing across government departments.

📜 Legal Foundation: Invest Bangladesh Act

⚖️ The recently enacted Invest Bangladesh Act also incorporates the concept of a Single Landing Platform, providing the legal and regulatory foundation to establish BanglaBiz as a permanent component of the country's investment and business service infrastructure. This legal grounding is significant because it ensures the platform's continuity beyond any single government's tenure.

🤝 With technical support from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the project will also ensure the platform's sustainability, strengthen its backend and cloud infrastructure, and establish provisions for future upgrades and scalability. The involvement of BUET reflects the government's intention to build the platform on solid technical foundations rather than relying solely on external consultants or vendors.

👥 Business Community Welcomes Initiative

🤝 Business leaders have welcomed the initiative, saying it could remove one of the biggest obstacles to investment in Bangladesh. They noted that investors currently wait two to three years to obtain all the licences and approvals needed to start a business — a timeframe that is wildly uncompetitive compared to regional peers.

📊 If applications can be submitted through a single platform and approvals issued online within a much shorter timeframe, it would reduce frustration, curb corruption and bureaucratic harassment, and encourage both local and foreign investment.

👕 Mahmud Hasan Khan Babu, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), told The Business Standard that the initiative to launch BanglaBiz is a positive step towards ensuring hassle-free and timely services for investors:

"If implemented effectively, BanglaBiz will make investing much easier. However, previous initiatives aimed at improving the investment climate ultimately failed to deliver their intended benefits because they were not fully implemented. The government must ensure BanglaBiz does not face the same fate."

⚠ The BGMEA president's caution reflects a healthy scepticism within the business community based on past experience with similar e-government initiatives that promised much but delivered little. The success of BanglaBiz will depend not just on the technology platform but on the willingness of government agencies to genuinely integrate their services and adopt common standards.

🌏 Strategic Significance for Bangladesh's Investment Climate

📊 The BanglaBiz initiative comes at a critical moment for Bangladesh's investment climate. With the country having recently attracted major commitments such as the $1.3 billion China Economic and Industrial Zone in Chattogram, and with the government targeting $63.4 billion in exports for FY2026-27, the ability to efficiently process investment approvals has become a strategic priority.

💼 For foreign investors in particular, the existing fragmented approach to business approvals has been a frequent complaint in investor surveys and consultations. A unified digital platform with a three-day approval target would represent a step-change improvement in Bangladesh's investment facilitation capacity — potentially helping the country compete more effectively with regional peers such as Vietnam, India, and Indonesia for foreign direct investment.

📊 The Tk 661.50 crore investment in the BanglaBiz platform, spread over the implementation period through 2030, represents a modest fiscal commitment relative to the potential economic returns in terms of increased investment, faster business formation, and reduced bureaucratic friction. The coming months will reveal whether the platform can deliver on its ambitious vision — and whether the business community's cautious optimism is warranted.