Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City (Kaliakoir) — A Cautionary Tale in Tech-Park Planning

Originally proposed in 1999 and developed under Bangladesh's Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) with a US$120 million World Bank loan signed in 2011 (followed by a further US$555 million World Bank facility in 2021 for tech-park and economic-zone investment), Kaliakoir Hi-Tech Park — renamed Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City in 2016 — was marketed as Bangladesh's future 'cyber capital,' expected to employ 100,000 workers on its 355-acre site in Gazipur district by 2025.
Actual uptake has fallen far short. As of November 2020, only five companies were manufacturing on site, employing about 13,000 workers combined, with independent reporting describing roughly 5,000 people arriving daily for largely low-skill assembly and data-entry work rather than the higher-value software jobs originally envisioned; that same reporting has described large sections of the park's buildings as vacant and deteriorating. Hyundai Motor Company's manufacturing plant is the most prominent anchor tenant to actually locate there.
This practice is included as a cautionary case: it demonstrates that public land, sizeable infrastructure investment (including multilateral development-bank financing) and a well-known government brand are not sufficient on their own to build a functioning tech cluster without complementary transport links, streamlined bureaucracy and a credible pipeline of anchor investors — all cited as contributing factors to the shortfall.

Read the full analysis: https://new.bhtpa.gov.bd/bangabandhu-hi-tech-park/