The Bangladesh – Korea 2nd Joint PPP Platform Meeting was held on 19 January 2020, Sunday at Ruposhi Bangla Grand Ballroom, Hotel Intercontinental, Dhaka. It was a part of the on-going collaboration between representatives of the public and private sectors of Bangladesh and Korea under “Policy for Implementing PPP Projects through Government to Government (G2G) Partnership, 2017. First Platform Meeting was held in Korea during 18-19 July 2019, where 14 projects were presented by Bangladesh and 10 projects were proposed by Korea. Among these, Korea finalized the following three projects for further collaboration and development: Dhaka Circular Railway, Matarbari – Madunaghat 400kV Transmission Line, Improvement of Dhaka (Joydebpur)-Mymensingh Road into Expressway with service lane.

The opening session of the meeting was chaired by Mr. Muhammad Alkama Siddiqui, CEO (Secretary), PPP Authority. Mr. Kang iI, Hu, Ambassador, Korea and Kyong-goo Hur, CEO, KIND embellished the meeting with their presence.

An interactive group discussion session took place among the Korean private investors and GoB agency officials on the projects selected in the first platform meeting that included concept, action plan, timeline, risk allocation, financing along with question-answer and consensus building for actions in the next stage. Later on, two new projects from Bangladesh and five project concepts from Korea were tabled at the meeting as prospective projects to be developed under this Joint PPP Platform.

In a working session on financing PPP projects, representatives of KEXIM, IDCOL, BIFFL, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Sonali Bank attended and presentations were made by KEXIM, IDCOL, BIFFL, SCB and HSBC through which they introduced their organizations and their services in Bangladesh. CEO of Korea Overseas Infrastructure & Urban Development Corporation (KIND), Director of MoLIT and their colleagues represented the Korean Government at in the session.

The closing session of the event presented summary of the proceedings of the day. It was attended by Dr. Ahmed Kaikaus, Principal Secretary to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, and Ms. Zuena Aziz, Principal Coordinator (SDG Affairs), Prime Minister’s office and Kyong-goo Hur, CEO, KIND. It was chaired by CEO, PPPA.

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) Authority issued the “Policy for Implementing PPP Projects through G2G Partnership” in 2017 for developing and upgrading public infrastructures with the foreign private investors based on strong bilateral relationships with the governments of those countries. Under this policy, PPP Authority is already developing various projects and many are waiting in the pipeline.