Foreign Minister Dr Khalilur Rahman pledged on Saturday to turn Bangladesh into South Asia’s most competitive investment destination, laying out a strategy of stability, reform and economic-diplomacy restructuring as global headwinds multiply.

Speaking at a conference in Dhaka, the minister said the government was working to build a “stable, predictable and investment-friendly” economy despite trade tensions, energy shocks, climate risk and slowing global growth.

The day-long “Roadmap for Trade, Growth & Economic Diplomacy 2026” event at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel was jointly organised by the foreign ministry and the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA). It drew government policymakers, foreign diplomats, development partners, business leaders and experts.

Rahman warned that sluggish global expansion was squeezing export markets while instability in international financial markets was making affordable finance harder for developing countries to secure.

The tightening nexus between climate risk and external debt, he said, was imposing additional costs, and the energy crisis was driving up production costs and eroding competitiveness.

The government had set three goals — stability, reform and boosting economic capacity — and was reconfiguring economic diplomacy to deliver them, the foreign minister said.

“Bangladesh is stable, predictable and open for investment,” Rahman told the audience. He said the government was committed to structural reforms to ensure policy predictability, transparency and ease of doing business.