The Impact of Foreign & Domestic Investment on Export Processing Zones in Bangladesh: An Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Approach

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a major force behind the integration of the global economy and has the potential to boost economic development in both investing and those receiving the investment. The majority of the study focuses on the influence of FDI on Bangladesh’s economic growth. A number of scholars have also looked at how FDI affects trade, domestic investment and other economic sectors. But surprisingly less research has been done on the effects of FDI on Bangladesh's export processing zones (EPZs). This study tries to investigate the impact of foreign and domestic investment on exports of EPZs between 2011-2022. To investigate EPZs export, this study used the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. The Wald test was used to determine the direction of causation. The ARDL estimate shows that investment, GDP and FDI all have a positive correlation with rising EPZ export. The coefficient for FDI inflows is 0.15% which suggests that if FDI inflows raise by 1%, EPZ export will grow by 0.15% while all other factors stay constant. It also shows that a 1% increase in investment leads to 1.32% quicker growth in EPZ exports, assuming all other factors remain constant. The Wald test demonstrates the bilateral causal relationship between EPZ export & FDI and the unidirectional relationship between EPZ export & GDP. Therefore, Bangladesh must take immediate measures to protect potential foreign investors in order to provide a welcoming environment so that they can feel their contribution in the Bangladeshi business industry is respected.