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BANGLADESH stands on the cusp of becoming a regional manufacturing powerhouse by 2035. To materialise this goal, the government plans to merge its various investment bodies into a unified one-stop entity , the investment promotion agency, to simplify processes and attract foreign investors. This vision is bold, but it contains a critical oversight: the possible sidelining of the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation. Excluding BSCIC from the merger would sever the new agency from decades of domestic industrial development, effectively privileging foreign capital over our domestic capacity.

Established in 1957, BSCIC — the nation’s first industrial promotion body — has nurtured countless small and cottage industries. Its vast grassroots network has laid the very foundation of our economy. Ignoring BSCIC means ignoring rural entrepreneurs, traditional crafts, and the hundreds of thousands of small firms that feed the broader economy.

A unified investment authority that omits this sector would create a two-tier system, favouring large foreign projects while domestic entrepreneurs remain stuck in traditional procedures, unable to cope with or link up to the highly competitive global business environment. In short, sidelining BSCIC jeopardises inclusive growth, deepens regional inequality, and undermines national resilience. To achieve balanced prosperity — bringing wealth to both city and countryside — BSCIC must be fully integrated into the new investment authority.

BSCIC is a testament to an enduring legacy created for an independent Bangladesh’s economy. As the nation’s first government organisation devoted to industrial promotion, it has focused on small, rural, and cottage industries nationwide. In its early years, BSCIC even imported machinery and raw materials, provided loans, and guided new projects in detail. Unlike later agencies that focused on big investors, BSCIC built Bangladesh’s industry from the ground up. This legacy ties BSCIC deeply to our national industrial identity. Excluding it from the new investment authority would cut it off from its roots, again privileging foreign capital over local capability. We would lose the bedrock of our entrepreneurial history. Any strategy for balanced growth must honour the institutions that created that history.

BSCIC’s unique strength lies in its reach: it operates 82 industrial estates nationwide, delivering doorstep services to entrepreneurs in remote regions. This network is a proven engine of rural prosperity. For example, BSCIC estates have given rise to industry leaders across various sectors: pharmaceutical companies like Square Pharmaceuticals (Pabna) and Radiant Pharma (Tongi); household brands like Pran-RFL (Rangpur); heavy electrical and battery firms like BRB Cables (Kushtia), National Fan (Tongi), and Hamko Battery (Khulna); and textile hubs like Kader Synthetic (Konabari) and the Narayanganj Hosiery Estate.

In agro and environmental goods, Alim Agro Industries Ltd (Sylhet) and Zaman Jute Diversified Mills Ltd (Jhenaidah) show strong growth potential. Even heritage industries have flourished: the Jamdani Industrial Estate in Narayanganj preserves our national weave; Sopura Silk in Rajshahi showcases regional craftsmanship; and Sareng Furniture and Fortune Shoes in Barisal have boosted local manufacturing. BSCIC industrial estates in Kalurghat (Chattogram), Noakhali, Feni, Cumilla, Bogura, Nilphamari, Sylhet, Jhenaidah, Mymensingh, Narsingdi, Pabna, Madaripur, Faridpur and Jashore are also thriving across industries with global competitiveness.

These examples underscore BSCIC’s critical contributions. Each estate provides infrastructure, utilities, and local know-how — a tested ecosystem ready for investors. Integrating BSCIC into the unified agency gives the government a ready mechanism for equitable regional growth and CMSME support. Ignoring it would collapse the foundations of our growth.

BSCIC’s strength lies in nurturing entrepreneurs at the grassroots. Its training programs — from district-level Entrepreneurship Development Programs to the BSCIC Training Institute (previously SCITI) and 15 skill centres — have trained hundreds of thousands of men and women in industrial and craft skills. In human capital development, no other agency matches BSCIC’s focus and capacity. The impact is enormous: around 830,000 small and cottage enterprises employ over 29 million people, with more than half of those jobs in rural areas, according to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics survey. These businesses are vital to village livelihoods and poverty reduction. Yet the merger plan seems to sideline them. Without BSCIC, Bangladesh’s burgeoning domestic entrepreneurship cluster would be severely undermined.

BSCIC’s alumni form a ready pool of talent — precisely the kind of SMEs multinational firms need as suppliers, subcontractors, and R&D partners. Foreign investment brings technology, but it succeeds only if local firms can absorb it. Thanks to BSCIC, Bangladesh has trained entrepreneurs and technicians ready to adopt new innovations. Remove BSCIC’s support, and hundreds of thousands of local businesses lose access to finance and knowledge. In other words, BSCIC turns training into industrial growth; ignoring it would disregard our investment in human capital and hurt long-term competitiveness.

The proposed investment promotion agency — intended to merge agencies like BIDA, BEZA (economic zones), BEPZA (export zones), and BHTPA (high-tech parks) — aims to streamline investment. But a one-stop entity cannot be truly comprehensive if it excludes a major stakeholder like BSCIC. If the merger proceeds this way, the new authority will inevitably favour large foreign projects while leaving the domestic base behind. This effectively creates a two-tier investment system. Foreign investors will glide through one investment promotion agencyÌý channel, enjoying incentives and facilitation, while native SMEs — the true bedrock of Bangladesh’s economy — remain stuck in outdated, fragmented channels. This contradicts the merger’s inclusive rhetoric.

BSCIC’s mandate has always been domestic industry support. A unified agency must serve all sectors together or risk leaving a gaping hole in economic policy. Without BSCIC, entrepreneurs would be stranded, innovators shut out, supply chains weakened, and rural industries devastated. In short, leaving BSCIC out of the merger jeopardises the growth, structure, output, and stability of the entire economy.

BSCIC estates anchor key industrial supply chains. Thousands of small factories in Tongi, Konabari, Chattogram, Narayanganj, and Kanchpur spin yarn and knit garments for the ready-made garments (RMG) sector, employing millions. For instance, Tamizuddin Textiles and Kader Synthetic (Konabari) supply yarn to garment makers, supporting a crucial industry. Another example is Shatranji (Rangpur): a GI-protected handloom carpet exported to about 40 countries — a heritage craft supported by BSCIC.

Beyond apparel, BSCIC estates nurture other vital supply lines. Its API Industrial Park in Munshiganj boosts pharmaceutical ingredient production, aiming to save billions in import costs. The upcoming chemical industrial park will safely relocate hazardous factories from Dhaka, while new estates will support the printing and packaging sectors. Even today, BSCIC firms in Bogura, Sylhet, Tongi, and Konabari produce packaging, agricultural machinery, and spare parts. These networks are invaluable to foreign investors, reducing costs and risks. A unified investment promotion agency that includes BSCIC provides direct access to this ecosystem; excluding it adds friction and deters FDI. In reality, BSCIC is the hidden backbone of Bangladesh’s manufacturing landscape — linking global investment with local enterprise.

If we learn from successful investment-friendly countries, Bangladesh must follow their example. China’s industrial clusters, India’s ODOP, Vietnam’s FDI reforms, and Korea’s dual-incentive policies all connect global capital to local enterprise. BSCIC already operates 82 industrial estates and SME hubs across the country. Merging it with the investment promotion agency would enable coordinated policies that attract FDI while embedding it in local value chains. Ignoring BSCIC risks replicating Vietnam’s urban-rural divide and missing China’s SME-MNC synergy. BIDS’s merger proposal gains strength only if BSCIC is seen not as peripheral but as central to equitable, innovation-led growth.

Full integration of BSCIC into the investment promotion agency is essential to avoid fragmentation and to leverage BSCIC’s 82-plus estates as engines of equitable development. A unified agency with these assets can distribute investment benefits nationwide, prevent excessive urban concentration, and safeguard rural economies. This will help unlock the country’s untapped potential — enabling BSCIC-supported SMEs to engage in joint ventures, subcontracting, local sourcing, and shared R&D with foreign investors, embedding Bangladeshi businesses into global value chains.

The proposed unification is a momentous opportunity — but it will only succeed if BSCIC is embraced as a vital partner. BSCIC is not an outdated relic; it is a forward-looking organisation with a nationwide network, entrepreneurial talent, and embedded supply chains. While it faces challenges — such as underused land and administrative bottlenecks — these are solvable through reform and integration, not exclusion.

Crucially, BSCIC embodies Bangladesh’s industrial identity. Its weavers, artisans, garment workers and machine builders reflect our cultural heritage and ingenuity. If we sideline BSCIC, we risk losing the soul of our economy — and with it, our national resilience. An economy built only on a few zones or foreign factories is fragile; one rooted in thousands of villages and towns is robust. Bangladesh needs both.

Ultimately, our investment future hinges on this choice. Fully integrating BSCIC will unite foreign and local capital into one cohesive ecosystem, honouring our long-standing commitment to small industries while attracting capital for growth. We urge policymakers and BIDA’s leadership to heed this call: including BSCIC will strengthen our industrial identity, bolster national resilience, and ensure domestic industrial prosperity that truly reaches every corner of the country and beyond.

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Shahjahan Ali works as an officer at BSCIC.