Chief Advisor Yunus formally inaugurates BIDA conference

Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has called for foreign investment in Bangladesh, saying it is the perfect place for those willing to do business and at the same time aim to bring changes to the country.

He said, “Bangladesh is a country where strange ideas of changing the world have been implemented.”

The chief advisor spoke on the third day of the BIDA Investment Summit on Wednesday as he formally inaugurated the Bangladesh Investment Conference 2025.

Yunus said, “It brings happiness to earn money, but making others happy brings super happiness. If you live in Bangladesh, you’ll enjoy both types of happiness - general happiness and super happiness. You’ll get it without any additional spending.”

The chief advisor became emotional as he spoke about the famine in 1974.

He said 1974 was a year he could never forget. “People died out from hunger as famine spread across the country. As many as 1.5 million people died. The country was like that when we started our journey.”

The chief advisor said, “We used to farm a single crop as we didn’t know about other options. Our population was known as farmers because they didn’t have any other profession. Among them, a few were landless farmers. They used to lease out farmland from those who owned it and made a living by cultivating a single crop. If you have ever heard the word ‘ultra poverty’- Bangladesh was the perfect example of that. Life was very tough.”

"We started our journey in 1974 and have had a wonderful one as of 2025.”

He said, “Now we speak about big industries and invite other large countries to set up industries here. We talk about a large market.”

“Regarding this large, talented youth population I will say - Bangladesh has progressed substantially in a very short period of time.”

While sharing the inception of Grameen Bank, Yunus said it was a small initiative that brought a little relief to the famine-stricken country. “People used to get tiny amount of loans worth $2 or $3 to open up new businesses. A special focus was on women as they were the most helpless group. This idea was introduced as ‘micro-credit.’ We opened a bank called Grameen Bank.”

"No one knew where it would end up but it became a global name. This is because you have a little bit of ‘Bangladesh in 1974’ inside you no matter where you live. You may not be able to identify that innate quality or even keep it hidden. You give people’s money to them (the poor). However, giving away government funds to the poor is not the solution. The real solution lies in creating a system that unleashes the power of people. Microcredit was just a small example of such an initiative,”

Yunus also shared his experience of securing a license for Grameenphone.

''Then we had a crazy idea- the government would issue license to use phones. At that time, we didn’t have phones (mobile phones). There was nothing called a telephone in the country.”

''Very few telephones were available in the urban areas and most of them didn’t work. I thought, why don’t we apply for a telephone company license? It was a crazy idea. The government asked- what would you do with the telephone license? What type of business? In reply I said- We’ll give it to the poor women. They laughed at us.”

''In a nutshell, finally, we got the license. We named the company ‘Grameenphone’- because we had our Grameen Bank.”

“No one wanted to be our partner as we had no knowledge. Everyone said Bangladesh wasn’t a proper place for mobile phones. There was no market.”

Finally, Norway’s Telenor company agreed to partner with them, Yunus said. He explained to Telenor why they wanted to bring the phone to women and the company took it seriously, the chief advisor said. However, the Telenor board initially did not agree. Later, Grameenphone became one of the largest telephone companies, he said.

Those who received awards at the event had their success due to their strong, brilliant ideas, the chief advisor said. “I invite you to join the creative work - bring changes to not only Bangladesh but also to the entire world through your businesses.”

He said, “I want to remind people that if you want to make a profit, go and make the maximum profit. But we can add a little social cause to it. This will not be a hindrance to the profit, rather it will make the business interesting. Many of you already do that.”

The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) organised the four-day Bangladesh Investment Summit 2025 that kicked off on Apr 7. The conference highlighted the increasing scope of investment in Bangladesh and its recent economic development.

Óscar García from Spain, Rosie Winterton from the UK and Nasim Manzoor from Bangladesh spoke at the inaugural session.

Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun, executive chairman of BIDA, presented a paper on trade and investment in Bangladesh.