Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman is scheduled to inaugurate the daylong conference at a hotel in the city state.

Executive Chairman of Board of Investment (BoI) Mahmudur Rahman and Executive Director of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya will make presentations on the investment opportunities.

The MCCI, which is holding the conference as a part of its centenary celebration programme, has taken steps to attract a cross-section of investors from Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei to the conference.

A total of 96 entrepreneurs from those countries have registered for participation at the conference. From Bangladesh, 28 leading entrepreneurs along with a team from MCCI Secretariat will be present there.

MCCI believes there are excellent prospects for foreign direct investment (FDI) in light engineering, agro-processing and IT as well as service sectors like healthcare, though larger industries like jute, textile and paper are facing problems.

More than 80 percent of the growth in the industrial sector is contributed by five industries -- readymade garments, fish & sea-food, leather tanning & leather goods, fertiliser and pharmaceuticals.

Readymade garment, fish & sea-food and leather tanning & leather goods are export-oriented industries while the other two industries, now witnessing robust growth, are mainly domestic market-oriented.

The conference will focus on labour-intensive and medium-sized industries such as IT, electronics, plastic, agro-processing have excellent growth potentials at home as well as for export to other countries following opening of markets.

Besides, the export processing zones in Bangladesh, which offer good opportunities for foreign investment, will be included in the agenda.

Bangladesh is one of the few countries, which have no restriction on foreign equity participation, no prior approval for any FDI and offer very liberal facilities for remittance and repatriation of profits.