August 28, 2008. As per the agreement with the International Republican Institute (IRI), International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) had undertaken four projects during the year 2007-2008. The projects and their findings in brief are as follows:

1. Power and Energy Sector of Bangladesh- this project focuses on the Energy Sector of Bangladesh and how more energy can be provided to consumers and businesses. It involved holding discussion forums with members of the Business Community, Consumers of energy and relevant Government officials. The findings clearly indicated that over the years, due to planning and mismanagement, the power and energy sector in Bangladesh did not make significant progress.  So, it is now essential that the Government take steps to diversify sources of energy instead of just relying on gas to meet the needs of power and energy. Also, further investments need to be made on building and renovating power plants in Bangladesh.

To view the findings from this study, please click the following link:

2. Economic Policies of the Political Parties in Bangladesh- this study primarily focused on the economic policies outlined by the lection manifestos of the four major Political Parties in Bangladesh; The Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jamaat-E-Islam Bangladesh and Jatiyo Party (Ershad).

To view the findings from this study, please click the following link:

3. Study circle with Journalists and Business Community- this study circle was conducted by IBFB in collaboration with Management and Resources Development  Initiative (MRDI) on 31 May 2008. From this study circle, the emphasis on Journalists receiving more access to information in order to write better reports was stressed. The participants said that media houses should maintain an Information Bank to store information on all sectors of the country, and at the same time, businessmen and enterprises should also provide proper information to reporters so that inaccurate reporting may be avoided.

To view the findings from this study, please click the following link:

4. Intellectual Property Rights for Software- this study was conducted by IBFB in collaboration with Daemon Systems. The focus of this study was to gather information on how much individuals in the Business sector were aware of Intellectual Property rights related to software. The primary findings showed that the use of pirated software was very frequent in the Business sector in Bangladesh, and one primary reason for the use of pirated software was the high cost of original software. The study also found that nearly one-quarter of the companies surveyed for this study were not aware or confused about individual property rights for software.