The advisory council committee on economic affairs at a meeting on Tuesday agreed in principle to a proposal linked to the establishment of a new ordnance factory in Chattogram.
Presided over by finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed from Singapore, the virtual meeting cleared a proposal from the jute and textiles ministry to hand over 55 acres of land of the closed Jalil Textile Mills in Chattogram to the Bangladesh Army.
The same committee, however, had sent back the proposal at a meeting held on July 28.
The Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation, which, after coming into existence in 1972, acquired many mills, including Jalil Textile Mills Ltd, submitted the proposal to the advisory council committee on July 15.
The Bangladesh Army has been looking for land since 2024 to establish a plant under the Bangladesh Ordnance Factories at Bhatirai in the port city for its important geo-political location.
The Bangladesh Ordnance Factories is currently located at Gazipur Cantonment.
For supplying arms, ammunition and equipment to the army, the ordnance factory produces a range of products, including firearms, artillery, fuses, detonators and explosives.
During the Bangladesh Investment Summit 2025 in April, Bangladesh Investment Development Authority executive chairman Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun said that Bangladesh was planning to attract foreign direct investment in production of defence hardware.
Side by side, foreign investors will be allowed to export defence hardware, he added while responding to a question whether the BIDA had plans to open the door of the defence industry to foreign investment.
FDI in defence hardware is not permitted in Bangladesh.
He said that the government was talking with the army, the navy and the air force about the FDI in defence hardware manufacturing since the country鈥檚 existing ordnance factory was operated by the army.
At Tuesday鈥檚 meeting, the committee, however, did not agreed to a proposal by the industries ministry to hand over all shares of the Chittagong Dry Dock to the defence ministry.
Formerly known as the Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation under the industries ministry, the Chittagong Dry Dock is now operated under the Bangladesh Navy.
Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha added that the finance adviser also presided over a meeting of the advisory council committee on government purchase on the same day and approved several proposals involving fertiliser imports.
The imports, including urea, TSP, MOP fertiliser and phosphoric acid, will be made from multiple international sources under state-level arrangements.
The day鈥檚 purchase committee meeting also approved two major road development proposals under the Noakhali Road Division aimed at upgrading key regional highways to four lanes, significantly enhancing connectivity in the greater Cumilla and Noakhali regions.
Apart from these, the purchase committee meeting gave approval to two procurement proposals under the project titled 鈥楳odernisation and Capacity Enhancement of BREB鈥檚 Electric Distribution System (Dhaka-Mymensingh Division) (Special Revised)鈥�.
