A British Economic Zone in Sylhet

For generations, Sylhet has had an economic relationship with Britain unlike that of almost any other region in South Asia. The movement began with sailors and post-war labour migration and developed into one of Britain’s most established diaspora communities. Later generations moved far beyond the restaurants, factories and manual jobs associated with the first migration waves. British Sylhetis are now doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs, journalists, councillors and parliamentarians. Academic work on the community describes a deeply transnational social world in which professional success in Britain coexists with continuing family, cultural and economic links to Sylhet.[1]

Bangladesh has always understood the symbolic value of this community. Visiting dignitaries meet expatriate organisations. Successful British Bangladeshis receive awards. Speeches praise remittances and the contribution of the diaspora. Politicians routinely describe expatriates as ambassadors of Bangladesh.

What has been much less developed is the next step: treating the community as an economic institution.

That matters because Bangladesh is now trying to attract investment with greater urgency. The Muhammad Yunus-led interim administration made investment reform and investor outreach a central part of its economic agenda. The BNP government that followed has continued in the same direction. In March 2026, the government set out a 180-day investment plan covering infrastructure, investor facilitation and targeted foreign investment. In July, Parliament passed the Invest Bangladesh Bill, intended to merge the main investment and economic-zone bodies into a single authority and create a more credible one-window system for investors.[2]

At the same time, the United Kingdom is looking outward for new markets, partnerships and cost-competitive locations. British companies face intense competition in manufacturing, technology and services. Bangladesh offers scale, a young workforce and access to regional markets. Britain offers something that many investment partners cannot provide in the same combination: capital, professional services, technical standards, finance, higher education, management systems, research networks and a large community with personal knowledge of both countries.

The missing piece is an institutional bridge. A British Economic Zone in Greater Sylhet could provide one.

The relationship is already larger than the policy around it

The argument does not begin from zero. Britain and Bangladesh already have a substantial commercial relationship. UK government figures put total bilateral trade at £4.5 billion in the four quarters to the end of March 2026, up 12 per cent on the previous year. UK outward foreign direct investment stock in Bangladesh stood at £848 million at the end of 2024, while Bangladeshi investment stock in the UK was £1.1 billion.[3]

The composition of British exports is especially relevant. Of £700 million in UK exports to Bangladesh over the same 12-month period, £414 million, or 59 per cent, was in services rather than goods. The UK’s share of Bangladesh’s services imports was 4.7 per cent in 2024, far higher than its 0.6 per cent share of goods imports.[3]

That is a clue to what a British zone should be. Bangladesh’s existing economic-zone model has often been discussed in the language of factories, serviced industrial plots and export manufacturing. A UK-Sylhet initiative should not simply copy that template. Britain’s comparative value to Bangladesh is unusually strong in services, knowledge industries and institutional capability.

This is also consistent with recent bilateral engagement. In March 2025, Bangladesh’s investment authorities held discussions in London with the British government, businesses and non-resident Bangladeshis, focusing on education, aviation, renewable energy, finance, manufacturing, technology, research and advanced infrastructure. The UK government has separately identified trade, investment, economic reform, climate expertise and private infrastructure finance as central areas of its long-term partnership with Bangladesh.[4]

In April 2026, the UK Trade Envoy again visited Dhaka with an explicit brief to increase two-way trade and investment. Britain described itself as a long-term economic partner and highlighted Bangladesh’s position as the largest beneficiary of the UK’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme.[5]

The political relationship therefore exists. The commercial relationship exists. The diaspora relationship exists. What does not yet exist is a place where these three relationships are deliberately assembled.

The idea of a British zone is not actually new

There is an important correction to the claim that Bangladesh has never offered Britain a country-specific economic zone. In January 2024, then prime minister Sheikh Hasina told a visiting cross-party group of British MPs that Bangladesh would allocate a separate economic zone for British investors if they were interested. She explicitly noted that land had been provided for country-specific zones for other states.[6]

The offer was politically notable, but it did not become a functioning British zone. There was no equivalent of the Japanese economic zone at Araihazar, no dedicated development company, no site with a clear British sector strategy and no sustained investor pipeline organised around the British market.

That distinction matters. An offer made during a diplomatic meeting is not an investment proposition. Investors need a site, infrastructure, governance, incentives, timelines, utility certainty, dispute-resolution arrangements and a credible institution responsible for delivery.

Bangladesh has demonstrated that it can build country-focused arrangements when it chooses to. The Bangladesh Special Economic Zone at Araihazar, developed with Japanese participation, has moved into production and by May 2026 had at least 12 companies with proposed investment of about $353 million, with further firms in the pipeline.[7] In July 2026, construction of the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone at Anwara was formally launched, with the government projecting about $1.3 billion of investment and more than 100,000 jobs when implemented.[8]

Not every country-specific model has succeeded. Proposed Indian economic zones at Mirsarai and Mongla were ultimately delisted after years of delay. That is itself a useful warning. A flag on an industrial estate is not an economic strategy. Country-specific zones work only when there is sustained investor demand, infrastructure and political ownership on both sides.

Bangladesh has traditionally treated its British-Sylheti diaspora as a source of remittances and prestige. It should begin treating it as a source of investment intelligence, management capability and commercial trust.

Why Sylhet?

If Bangladesh revived the British-zone proposal, the obvious question would be location. From a conventional industrial logistics perspective, Sylhet is not the automatic answer. Chattogram has the seaport. Dhaka and Narayanganj have the largest labour and supplier concentrations. Mirsarai has major industrial land and proximity to port infrastructure.

Sylhet’s case is different. Its advantage is relational rather than purely logistical.

The British-Sylheti network reduces one of the most underestimated costs of foreign investment: uncertainty. Diaspora investors understand the language, family networks, local business culture and political context of Bangladesh, while also understanding British expectations on contracts, accounts, health and safety, employment practice, customer service and corporate governance. They can translate between two commercial systems.

This kind of trust matters particularly for small and medium-sized British firms. A multinational can employ lawyers, consultants and government-relations teams before entering a new country. A £10 million engineering company in Birmingham or a specialist food manufacturer in Manchester may not be able to. A British-Sylheti director, adviser or joint-venture partner can make a country that appears administratively difficult much more legible.

Sylhet also has practical assets on which to build. Osmani International Airport began handling dedicated export cargo operations in 2025, opening a route for higher-value and time-sensitive goods to European markets. The airport’s cargo facilities were equipped to meet security requirements for markets including the UK and Europe.[9] Sylhet Hi-Tech Park also had around 74 acres available for allocation by September 2025, according to the government.[10] Direct passenger links between London and Sylhet reinforce the human connection that already underpins the regional economy.

The right planning question is therefore not whether Sylhet can beat Chattogram as a heavy-industrial location. It cannot, and it should not try. The question is whether Sylhet can offer a better landing point for a particular category of British investment. On that narrower test, its case is strong.

It should not be another smokestack industrial estate

A British Economic Zone in Sylhet would fail if it were conceived simply as hundreds of acres of low-cost factory sheds. That would ignore both the British economy and the environmental character of the region.

Sylhet’s landscape is one of Bangladesh’s greatest economic assets. Tea gardens, wetlands, rivers, hills and a relatively green urban identity support tourism, agriculture and quality of life. Large-scale land-intensive industrialisation could easily destroy part of the very proposition the region is trying to sell.

The zone should instead be built around a smaller-footprint, higher-value model. It could combine serviced commercial and light-industrial plots with an innovation district, training facilities, laboratories, flexible offices and an investment services centre. Existing economic or hi-tech land should be preferred over the unnecessary conversion of tea gardens, wetlands or productive agricultural land.

The first sector should be digital and business services. Bangladesh already has a substantial IT and IT-enabled services sector, and the investment authority identifies software, AI, cybersecurity, user-interface design and outsourcing as areas of growth.[11] British firms could use Sylhet for software development, back-office functions, accountancy support, legal process outsourcing, data services and customer operations serving UK time zones.

The second should be professional and technical services. British strengths in engineering consultancy, planning, architecture, quantity surveying, environmental assessment, financial services, insurance and project management are particularly relevant to a country still investing heavily in infrastructure and urbanisation. Joint ventures could use British systems and accreditation while developing Bangladeshi professional capacity.

The third should be education and skills. British universities, colleges and professional bodies already have a market in Bangladesh. A zone could include branch training centres, applied research partnerships, vocational academies and professional accreditation linked directly to participating employers. This would turn investment promotion into skills transfer rather than simply land allocation.

The fourth should be health and life sciences. British-Sylheti doctors and health professionals are among the diaspora groups with the clearest potential to connect institutions in both countries. Specialist diagnostics, medical training, telemedicine, clinical support services, medical devices and private healthcare partnerships could form part of the cluster.

The fifth should be agri-food and cold-chain activity. Sylhet already produces tea, citrus, fish and other products with diaspora demand in Britain. The launch of cargo operations from Osmani Airport creates a basis for higher-standard packaging, food processing, testing, traceability and cold-chain facilities aimed at UK and European consumers.[9] A British-linked zone could help move this trade from informal ethnic-market supply towards higher-value branded exports.

Renewable energy, aviation services, light engineering and tourism technology are further possibilities. Importantly, these are close to the sectors already identified in UK-Bangladesh investment discussions.[4]

The diaspora should be the bridge, not the entire market

A diaspora-led strategy carries its own danger. Bangladesh has often assumed that emotional attachment to the homeland is itself an investment incentive. It is not.

A successful British-Sylheti entrepreneur may love Bangladesh and still decide that investing there is commercially irrational. Sentiment does not compensate for an unreliable electricity connection, customs delay, opaque tax treatment, land disputes, inconsistent regulation or difficulty repatriating profits.

This is precisely why the government should stop asking diaspora investors to invest as a favour to Bangladesh. The proposition should be the reverse: Bangladesh should demonstrate why investing through Sylhet can improve the competitiveness of a British business.

That means the zone must ultimately attract firms with no Bangladeshi connection at all. Diaspora businesses and professionals should function as the first movers, advisers, joint-venture partners and reputation-builders. Once a British engineering, software or food business sees another UK company operating successfully in the zone, the importance of ethnic connection begins to fall. That is how a diaspora bridge becomes a mainstream investment corridor.

The goal should therefore be a British Economic Zone, not a British-Bangladeshi expatriate enclave.

What would make the zone credible?

The first requirement is a single accountable delivery body. Bangladesh’s new Invest Bangladesh framework is intended to reduce the duplication that has historically frustrated investors. A UK-Sylhet zone would be a useful test of whether that reform works in practice. One team should be able to coordinate land, company registration, tax, customs, utilities, work permits and environmental permissions to published deadlines.[2]

Second, the British side should be involved from the beginning. The Department for Business and Trade, British High Commission, British International Investment, UK Export Finance, professional institutions and British chambers of commerce should be invited into the design of the proposition, not merely asked to market a completed scheme.

Third, Bangladesh should establish a UK-Sylhet Investment Council made up of British companies, British-Sylheti entrepreneurs and professionals, Bangladeshi businesses, universities and government representatives. Its purpose should be commercial, not ceremonial. It should identify ten or twenty realistic anchor investors, understand what would make them invest, and build the zone around those requirements.

Fourth, there should be a serious aftercare function. Bangladesh has historically concentrated on investment announcements. The more important measure is what happens three years later. Does the investor expand? Are licences renewed on time? Can profits be repatriated? Can a dispute be resolved without political intervention? Existing investors are a country’s most persuasive sales force.

Fifth, the zone should have measurable knowledge-transfer requirements. Tax concessions should be linked, where appropriate, to apprenticeships, management training, local supplier development, research collaboration and professional accreditation. The benefit to Bangladesh should not be measured only in the number of factory gates opened.

Sixth, the physical plan must be environmentally disciplined. A Sylhet investment initiative that damages wetlands, tea landscapes or drainage systems would be self-defeating. Compact development, public transport, renewable energy, sustainable drainage, waste treatment and strong landscape buffers should be part of the investment proposition, not regulatory afterthoughts. The current government has itself said economic zones should become green, modern industrial hubs.[12]

There is a wider regional-development case

Bangladesh’s economic geography remains heavily concentrated around Dhaka and Chattogram. That concentration creates productivity benefits, but it also places enormous pressure on land, housing, transport and infrastructure. A successful higher-value investment cluster in Sylhet would support a more balanced national urban system.

The benefit would be particularly important if it created professional employment rather than simply low-wage industrial work. One of Sylhet’s longstanding paradoxes is that large amounts of diaspora money have flowed into houses, land and consumption without creating a commensurate base of productive enterprises. The physical evidence is visible in large expatriate-funded homes and commercial property, some of which remain underused for long periods.

A structured investment vehicle could redirect a portion of that relationship from property and remittance consumption towards operating companies, skills, exports and research. The difference is fundamental. A remittance supports household income. An investment can create an institution that continues to employ, export and train after the original capital has been spent.

That would also change the relationship between Sylhet and its diaspora. Instead of the region asking successful expatriates to donate to a school, hospital or road, it could ask them to build companies, mentor founders, create supply chains and connect local firms to British markets.

Recognition would move from medals to institutions.

What Britain gains

The proposal should not be sold in London as development assistance. Britain would need a clear commercial return.

For British SMEs, Bangladesh can offer a lower-cost base for selected services and production while retaining access to a large domestic market and wider Asian supply chains. For universities and professional institutions, it offers a young market for qualifications, research and training. For engineering and infrastructure firms, Bangladesh’s continuing urbanisation creates demand for technical services. For renewable-energy, aviation and digital businesses, the sectors identified in recent bilateral discussions are already substantial growth markets.[4]

The UK also benefits from supply-chain diversification. The lesson of recent global disruptions is that firms do not necessarily want the cheapest single supplier; they want resilient networks across several markets. Bangladesh already has a large trading relationship with Britain, but it remains heavily concentrated in Bangladeshi goods exports to the UK. A zone that increases British investment and services exports would make the relationship more balanced.[3]

There is also a softer advantage. Few British investment relationships can draw on a community with such direct human links to a particular overseas region. The people needed to make introductions, explain institutions, recruit managers and translate commercial expectations are already in London, Birmingham, Manchester and other British cities. The policy challenge is to organise that asset.

From appreciation to economic architecture

Bangladesh does not need another diaspora conference at which successful expatriates are thanked for their contribution and encouraged to send more money home. The British-Sylheti relationship is mature enough for something more serious.

Nor does Bangladesh need to promise another vast economic zone before establishing who will use it. The country’s own experience shows the difference between functioning zones and ambitious announcements. The British proposal should begin with investors, sectors and governance, and only then determine the exact land requirement.

A sensible first step would be a joint feasibility and market-testing exercise for a UK-Bangladesh Economic and Innovation Zone in Greater Sylhet. It should assess existing sites, including economic and hi-tech land, airport and road connectivity, environmental constraints, labour skills, utility capacity and the requirements of a defined group of prospective British investors.

If the market test supports it, the government could designate the zone with a dedicated UK desk, fast-track approvals and a board containing both countries’ business representatives. If it does not, the same process may point towards a smaller distributed cluster rather than a conventional zone. The form should follow the investment logic.

The timing is unusually favourable. Bangladesh is rebuilding its investment institutions. The BNP government is explicitly pursuing foreign capital and country-specific investment pipelines. The UK is actively seeking deeper commercial ties with Bangladesh. Sylhet has new cargo capacity, available technology land and a diaspora whose links to Britain have been built over generations.[2][5][9][10]

The relationship does not need to be invented. It needs to be organised.

For decades, Sylhet exported people to Britain, and those people helped build businesses, professions and communities there. A British Economic Zone would reverse part of that movement, not by bringing people permanently back, but by bringing capital, knowledge, standards, networks and opportunity with them.

That is a more meaningful form of recognition than another award ceremony. And, if designed properly, it could be one of the rare investment ideas that is genuinely in the interests of Sylhet, Bangladesh and Britain at the same time.

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Sources and notes:

1. A. K. M. Ahsan Ullah and Anabelle Ragsag, “Sylheti Diaspora in the United Kingdom: Exceptionalism or Contested Nationalism?”, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (2025). The study discusses the community’s transnational links, professional development, entrepreneurship and political participation.

2. Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, “Joint 180-Day Plan Unveiled for BIDA, BEZA, PPPA and MIDA”, 16 March 2026; and “Invest Bangladesh to be Formed as Bangladesh’s Apex Investment Development Agency by Unifying BIDA, BEZA and PPPA”, 16 July 2026.

3. UK Department for Business and Trade, Bangladesh: Trade and Investment Factsheet, 31 July 2026. Total bilateral trade was £4.5bn in the four quarters to Q1 2026; UK exports were £700m, including £414m in services; UK outward FDI stock in Bangladesh was £848m at the end of 2024.

4. Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, “UK to Boost Investment in Bangladesh’s Growth, Focusing on Education, Aviation and Renewable Energy”, 16 March 2025; UK Government, UK-Bangladesh Development Partnership Summary, July 2023.

5. UK Government, “UK Trade Envoy visits Dhaka to strengthen two-way trade and economic ties”, 6 April 2026.

6. BSS / Financial Express, “PM offers separate economic zone for British investors”, 28 January 2024. The then prime minister offered to allocate a separate zone for UK investors, but no functioning UK-specific zone subsequently emerged.

7. The Business Standard, “Japanese economic zone taking shape with $353m from 12 firms, more in pipeline”, 4 May 2026.

8. Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, “Construction of Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone (CEIZ) Begins”, 27 July 2026.

9. The Business Standard, “Sylhet’s trade gateway expands as Osmani Airport launches cargo flights”, 27 April 2025. Osmani became Bangladesh’s second airport with a cargo station and the facility included equipment intended to meet UK and European market requirements.

10. BSS, “Taiyeb urges entrepreneurs to invest in Sylhet Hi-Tech Park”, 6 September 2025. The government said around 74 acres were ready for allocation.

11. Bangladesh Investment Development Authority, investment sector profile: IT and IT-enabled services. BIDA identifies software development, AI, cybersecurity, UI/UX, mobile applications and outsourcing among the sector’s growth areas.

12. BNP / Prime Minister’s Office report, “PM calls for developing economic zones as green industrial hubs”, 3 August 2026.

Murshed Ahmed is a Senior Urban Planner based in the UK and Chartered Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Photo: Tower Bridge, London

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