Switzerland’s ABB Group sees ‘good’ business opportunity in Bangladesh as the economy grows despite the country’s volatile politics.
Frank Duggan, Head of Global Markets of the worldwide leader in power and automation technologies, says there will be growing demands of their products ranging from ‘the starting point to the end point in the electricity chain’.
“The technology we have, the equipment we make touches everything you do every day,” he told bdnews24.com in an interview on Tuesday.
He is the first of the senior-most ABB official to be visiting Bangladesh in the more than two years of its incorporation as a company in the country.
Duggan says they do business with a ‘long perspective’ and in different parts of the world, pressures and stresses are different in nature.
“But I leave Bangladesh with a feeling that our foundations in Bangladesh are strong,” he said.
Having spoken to a wide range of people during his three-day visit, he found there were different shades of opinion, “but one common thing I heard is everyone wants the economy to move forward”.
Based in Zurich, the $45 billion ABB Group employs 150,000 people in the 100 countries where it operates.
It is the largest supplier of industrial motors and drives, the largest provider of generators to the wind industry, and the largest supplier of power grids worldwide.
The group has been present in Bangladesh since independence, serving industry and utility customers with its products, systems and solutions. But it established itself as a company in 2011.
Duggan would not provide specific figures on their business portfolio in Bangladesh, but said they were moving at ‘a fast pace’.
“We have 55 people in our Dhaka office and of them 54 are Bangladeshis.”
He said Bangladesh’s steady economic growth at 6 percent was “the foundation of building strength of the country”.
“Our perspective from ABB is that growing GDP means growing electricity consumption, growing industry, growing demands of products, systems and solutions that we sell, we deliver to the market”.
He said when the company moves to a country, it does so with a perspective of 50 years or 100 years.
In Bangladesh, he said, most of their staff members were young and they would be here for 20 to 30 years.
“It’s my dream that people who work here will be the foundation of ABB in Bangladesh.”
He said the key to ABB’s success was its people.
Citing their market in different countries, he said their goal was to grow, but “as we grow, we create more value in the country”.
Similarly, he said he wants to see ABB in Bangladesh as a “Bangladeshi company with a Bangladeshi identity that fits into the ABB’s global philosophy.”
As his visit to Bangladesh was to have ‘a personal feeling and understanding’ and meet customers to get their views, he said he was “really pleased to see how optimistic and how bullish the customers are about the market and Bangladesh’s future”.
He said every emerging country has challenges and that should not prevent it from development.
“We are not scared of challenges … in every market there will be highs and low,” he said.
He said they are in Bangladesh with long-term perspective. -bdnews24.com
