ABSTRACT
In Bangladesh, privatization represents a continuum of policy and policy changes. It may indeed be historically incorrect to say that privatization is of recent policy origin in Bangladesh. In 1947, Bangladesh had few industriescotton textiles, jute bailing, sugar, tea, cement, a dockyard, a railway workshop, etc. After partition of India, the government of East Pakistan felt compelled to become directly involved in building industries in the jute and cotton textile sectors. A large integrated textile mill was set up to feed the weaving community with yarn and the domestic market with finished products. A large jute mill was also established to initiate the process of industrialization. These mills were then sold to a local migrant entrepreneur at a price that did not cover even a quarter of the cost. Similarly, the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) built, along with other industrial units, a paper mill, which it then sold to a migrant entrepreneur at a negotiated price which was also less than a quarter of the actual cost. These two migrant entrepreneurs became part of the ‘twenty-two families’ of Pakistan who controlled over three-quarters of bank advances, besides owning a substantial portion of the physical and financial assets in the modern organized sectors of the economy. PIDC set up twelve jute mills as joint ventures with the private sector and then divested its share to the private parties.
