The government has taken a move to reconvene a meeting of the Japan-Bangladesh Joint Platform (JBJP) virtually at the end of this month, officials said.
They said the Public Private Partnership Authority (PPPA) has already contacted with Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) to hold the platform's 4th meeting, which was scheduled to be held in Dhaka on March 12 last but was postponed due to spread of coronavirus.
The counterpart also agreed with the tentative schedule, hinting about presence of a sub-working group including the private investors who have already made progress in the investment negotiation on rail and road projects, said the officials.
The meeting was supposed to hold discussion onfunding of US$ 7.0 billion in six rail and road projects under the government-to-government (G2G) Public-Private Partnership (PPP) modality.
As the PPPA planned to present new projects at the meeting, sources said the agencies concerned including Bangladesh Bridge Authority, Bangladesh Railway and, Roads and Highways Department were found less responsive in attending the meeting.
They said the agencies concerned showed reservation about presenting new projects as all project officials are not attending office at a time. The PPPA, however, continued its effort to at least resume its activities during the pandemic.
"We actually want to start the talk and see how the platform meeting can proceed amid the pandemic," said an official.
He said the platform has so far discussed about the progress and tasks needed to do on the selected projects. It also held discussion about new projects when Bangladesh side proposed for the private sector investment under G2G PPP arrangement.
PPPA officials said the Japanese side has already confirmed about the participation of Marubeni Corporation and Kajimo Corporation which showed interest to invest in two multi-modal transport hub construction projects.
Kajimo Corporation has already made good progress in negotiation and pre-conceptual design to invest in multi-modal transport hub at Kamalapur.
The Bangladesh side was set to place three more projects for Japanese private sector investment during the 4th platform meeting. These were Bhola-Barisal bridge project, deep water container terminal project of Payra Port Authority and circular road of Bangladesh Railway.
Besides, mass rapid transit line 2 and 4 were also potential projects for placing in the meeting.
