Paban Chowdhury is a retired civil servant and the former Chairman of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA). [1] [2] He is the chief advisor of City Group. [3] He was the Director General of the Prime Minister's Office of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. [4]
Chowdhury was the Additional Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office. [5] In January 2014, Chowdhury was part of a investigation team that looked at allegations of sexual harassment allegations against Md. Tauhedul Islam, the Bangladesh Consul General in Milan, by a coworker. [5] The investigation team, which included Additional Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jishnu Roy Chowdhury and director Kazi Anarkoly, found evidence in favor of the allegations. [5]
On 30 June 2014, Chowdhury was appointed chairman of the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority. [6] He was promoted to secretary in 2015. [7] He was reappointed chairman on 28 June 2017. [6] His term was again extended in 2019 for which he thanked Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. [6] He received a 200 million investment from Ashraful Haq Chowdhury of Star Infrastructure Dev. Consortium Limited for building industries at the Mirasharai Economic Zone. [8] He launched an one stop service center for the BEZA. [9]
Chowdhury announced plans to offer more incentives to encourage investments during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh. [10] He removed registration fees for private economic zones. [11] It received 6 billion USD investment offers in 2020. [12] He announced 43.67 billion BDT investment to develop Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Shilpa Nagar. [13]
Chowdhury is the chief advisor of City Group. [14] [15] Following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina led Awami League government, he was accused in a murder case along with 52 other retired secretaries. [16]