Leading industrial conglomerate of the country Akij Group is contemplating to set up rice and edible oil plants worth Tk 700 crorein Jamalpur Economic Zone (EZ).
The group will produce and market various types of rice as well as rice bran, mustard and sunflower oils, company sources said.
Jamil Uddin, a director of the group, submitted a proposal to the Bangladesh Economic Zone’s Authority (BEZA) Thursday proposing to set up an agro-processing plant at Jamalpur Economic Zone.
The plants will be set up by Akij Insaf Legacy Limited under Akij Textile Mills, a subsidiary of Akij Group. The project will employ initially about 1,200 people in the first year. If implemented completely, the project will create jobs for two thousand people, company sources said.
Ashraful Alam, company secretary of Akij Group, said the rice business would be a large investment for the company. He said they have plans to set up other mills as well. Initially on 40 acres of land, a rice mill, a rice bran oil mill, a mustard oil mill, a sunflower oil mill, poultry and fish feed mills and a silica extraction plant would be set up.
Silica will be produced in silica plant from husk ashes. He said silica plant would be a state of the art plant and use environment friendly technologies.
Besides, two more big factories of mustard oil and sunflower oil will be built, Ashraf said.
“Akij wants to start industrial scale productions of some goodswithin the next 18 months if we are awarded the lease in the next three months,” he said, adding the businesses would be further expanded in the near future.
The conglomerate has plans to ramify industries after seeing how fist tranches work.
It is learned that Akij Group is currently processing and marketing Sunshine brand of rice flour. If this investment looks prospective, Akij will bring all types of rice into to the market.
Extreme instability has been created in the rice and edible oil markets at this time of the Coronavirus pandemic period, the group believes. That is why Akij Group is investing heavily in the production of these two products. So that sufficient quantity of rice and edible oil could be supplied to the market across the country, company sources explained.
Therefore, said Ashraf all kinds of cooperation will be extended to the farmers to grow these two crops across different districts of the country.
The produces will be purchased at a fair price, he pointed out.
“This is will be an integrated agro-processing industry”.
The government is developing an economic zone in the less developed district of Jamalpur. No big factory has so far been set up in this district.
In April 2016, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) had approved a project worth Tk 302 crore to develop Jamalpur Economic Zone. In 2017, the project cost was revised to Tk 330 crore.
The economic zone is being set up on a 438-acre of land in Digpait and Titpalla Unions in Jamalpur Sadar Upazila. A mammoth physical work is going on around the economic zone, now.
BEZA is also implementing this project. In the first phase, several plots have been made suitable for various plants. Two companies are starting their worksto build their own factory outlets.
BEZA says the Jamalpur economic zone will create an employment opportunity for at least 50,000 people. In this EZ, BSCIC has been given 50 acres and Bitak five acres of land, respectively. So far 12 industrial plots have been allotted including one to Reliance Solutions.
BEZA executive chairman Pawan Chowdhury said economic zone is being developed as per a national plan to give a growth momentum to less developed districts.
He said entrepreneurs have responded quite well over the economic zone.
“Several big companies like Akij Group have come up with several proposals worth Rs 700-800 crore. The first phase of this EZ has already been developed,” he said.
He said: “Further development works will be done in this EZ in the second phase as more entrepreneurs are showing their interests to join us.”
