Most investor meetings yield simply a photograph, but a breakfast hosted by JP Morgan in New York during the final week of September produced a rarer outcome: a guest list that functions as a plan. Representatives from BlackRock, PIMCO, TPG, Macquarie, I Squared, Farallon, Jane Street, GoldenTree, and MetLife sat across from Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury, alongside six other institutions.

The names cited are not a random selection of Wall Street firms. Collectively they encompass the sovereign bond Bangladesh plans to launch, the infrastructure it must build, and the credit its industries require to expand. The list appears to have been compiled with a precise understanding of what Bangladesh will need to finance over the next decade.

During the week, at a symposium co‑hosted by VEON and Banglalink, Bangladesh’s finance minister announced the approval of a digital‑bank licence backed by VEON, Banglalink and Square Group. In California, State Minister Shama Obaed Islam and ICT Adviser Rehan Asif Asad met with chip engineers and the founders of Zscaler and Replit, and opened talks with Arizona State University on chip‑design education. Over four days, Bangladesh engaged with the bond market, hard‑asset developers and the technology frontier.

“Begin with the bond, because everything else borrows against it,” a senior official said. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given in‑principle approval for JP Morgan to serve as lead manager on Bangladesh’s first international bond issue, with a proposed size of between $500 million and $1 billion.

Among the participants were PIMCO, one of the world’s largest fixed‑income managers; GoldenTree, a specialist credit investor; MetLife, which carries liabilities extending over several decades and therefore seeks assets with comparable maturities; Jane Street, which provides market‑making and liquidity for emerging‑market bonds and the funds that hold them, acting as the plumbing that keeps new issues trading after launch day; and BlackRock, which runs some of the largest emerging‑market debt portfolios globally.

The transaction merges an anchor order book with a secondary market in a single sitting. By pricing the debut tightly, it not only raised more than a billion dollars but also provides every Bangladeshi bank, utility and exporter with a benchmark to borrow against for a generation.

The builders’ segment presents an almost uncanny match. Macquarie now manages more infrastructure assets than any other firm globally, covering everything from ports to renewable‑energy projects. I Squared has assembled a portfolio of power and utility assets across Asia. TPG runs a climate fund focused on energy transition in emerging markets. BlackRock’s 2024 acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners places it in direct competition within the same arena.

Bangladesh has an immediate, shovel‑ready demand for each of these projects. The ports of Chittagong and Matarbari require additional capacity, while the national grid needs new transmission lines and storage to handle renewable power already on the drawing board. Data‑centre operators also need reliable electricity and fibre connectivity. Farallon, drawing on its depth in private credit, could finance mid‑size industrial and logistics firms that Bangladeshi banks struggle to serve at scale. Little of this activity appears in headline foreign‑investment figures, but it is evident in the country’s evolving skyline.

The California track provides the key resource that expands more rapidly than capital: human talent. Ulkasemi, a partner in the TSMC Design Centre Alliance, employs more than 600 engineers operating in four different countries.

sBIT develops semiconductor chips for customers such as Broadcom and AMD, while Arizona State University maintains one of the United States’ largest engineering schools.

Bangladesh does not need a wafer‑fab to play a role in the semiconductor sector. The country aims to expand the design and verification work it already carries out successfully, and it has recently met potential partners who could assist.

Remittances hit a record $35.56 billion in the fiscal year to June, a rise of 17.3 %. Usable reserves now top $31 billion, sufficient for roughly five months of imports.

Moody’s lifted its outlook to stable in September, citing reduced political and external pressure after the February election. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) recorded the fastest growth in foreign direct investment in South Asia in 2025, at 45 %.

For bond investors, remittances serve as the cornerstone of the external account. For construction firms, the prospect of serving a market of more than 180 million people—whose demand for power, logistics and housing outstrips available supply—constitutes the core investment thesis.

History is blunt about what happens next. Costa Rica’s investment agency CINDE conducted roughly 19 meetings with Intel before the chipmaker pledged an initial $115 million investment in 1997. Over the next 15 years that commitment grew to about $900 million, making Intel the country’s largest exporter. Samsung, meanwhile, has poured $23.2 billion into Vietnam since 1995. In both instances, the first meeting produced no immediate result, while the nineteenth meeting proved decisive.

The follow‑through could be documented for each investor. For bond purchasers, a quarterly letter from the finance minister outlining reform milestones, released ahead of the roadshow, would allow the debut to be accompanied by an established track record.

For infrastructure builders, Invest Bangladesh could assemble a dozen investment-ready projects spanning energy, logistics, and digital infrastructure, with each featuring a data room, a named owner, and a clear risk-sharing structure. Because Macquarie cannot underwrite a slide and instead requires a project, a guarantee facility for mid-sized exporters could simultaneously unlock lending for credit houses at a scale that the banking system alone is unable to reach.

In the technology track, a memorandum of understanding with Arizona State University, a fast‑track window for chip and artificial‑intelligence firms, and a diaspora fellowship that brings senior engineers back for six‑month stints would turn the visit into a channel.

Above all, each of the fifteen institutions could be assigned a named senior counterpart in Dhaka, with a commitment to provide answers within a fortnight. Serious investors view the speed of response as a proxy for all other considerations.

The prime minister aims to expand the national economy to $1 trillion by 2034. With the economy currently valued at roughly $500 billion, achieving that target would require an average real growth rate of about 6 % per year over the next eight years. Maintaining a more modest growth path of 4.5 % would bring the economy to around $830 billion, while a higher‑growth scenario of 7.5 % would lift it to approximately $1.17 trillion.

The gap between those paths amounts to approximately $340 billion in annual output, which is more than half the size of today's economy. Geography will not close this gap, and demography will not close it either. However, the capital that was present at that table could do so.

The guest list in New York already resembles a blueprint. The current task is to demonstrate to each name, firm by firm, their exact placement.

Ashfaq Zaman is the Chief Strategist of the Dhaka Forum Initiative, a policy think tank based in Dhaka. The views expressed are the writer's own.

Why it matters

Engaging top global financial institutions for sovereign debt and infrastructure financing is critical to achieving Bangladesh's economic growth targets over the next decade.