Dhaka, April 8:

Bangladesh plans to set up special economic zones (SEZs) across the country soon to spur economic growth in the impoverished nation, a minister said.

“The SEZs would be set up to boost industrial expansion,” the country’s interim minister for power and energy Tapan Chowdhury said.

“In this economic zone, both foreign and local investors will enjoy equal incentives,” he said in a statement, without elaborating Bangladesh already has eight export processing zones (EP-Zs) where more than 250 industries operate with a total investment of $1.08 billion.

The industries employ more than 200,000 people and account for some 20 per cent of the country’s $10.5 billion annual export trade. Plans for another 151 industries with an investment of nearly one billion dollars are at various stages of implementation, the government’s EPZ spokeswoman Nazma binte Alamgir said.