Dhaka, March 12 -- The gross inflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) declined by 27.53 per cent in the first half (July-December) of the current fiscal year (2023-24) due to the lack of pro-investment environment and non-cooperative mentality of the regulatory authorities.

Despite steady economic growth in the country over the past decade, the FDI is also comparatively low in Bangladesh, economists said.

They blamed the time-consuming bureaucracy, poor socio-economic and physical infrastructure, unreliable energy supply, corruption, absence of good governance, low labour productivity, undeveloped money and capital markets, high-cost of doing business, complicated tax system, frequent changes in policies on import duties for raw mater...