AkijBashir Joins RE100 as World Bank Team Discusses Energy Financing in Dhaka

AkijBashir Group has become the first Bangladeshi company to join RE100, a global corporate initiative run by the Climate Group that brings together more than 400 businesses worldwide committed to running entirely on renewable electricity by 2050 at the latest. The industrial conglomerate, which already operates roughly 90 megawatts of solar capacity across its facilities, says the commitment is meant to push it toward 100 percent renewable electricity across all of its operations. "Joining RE100 is more than a renewable energy commitment, it is a step towards transforming how we power our business and build sustainable growth," said Managing Director Sk Bashir Uddin.

The announcement did not happen in isolation. It landed in the same week a four member World Bank delegation arrived in Dhaka for a five day visit, from October 3 to 7, specifically to discuss energy security financing and infrastructure reform, and just a day after the government unveiled a sweeping new energy roadmap meant to guide the country's power mix through 2040. Put together, the three developments sketch a sector trying to finance its way out of a squeeze that has as much to do with fuel import costs as with climate ambition.

Why one company joining a club matters

RE100 itself does not hand out money. What it offers members is a globally recognised accountability framework, benchmarking against other companies' progress, and access to policy engagement and technical best practice through the Climate Group's network. For AkijBashir, the appeal is largely about credibility with international buyers and partners who increasingly ask industrial suppliers to show a renewable energy trajectory rather than simply claim one. Bashir Uddin framed it that way himself, saying the move would help the company "contribute to Bangladesh's cleaner energy future while inspiring other businesses to accelerate their renewable energy adoption."

That inspiration argument matters because Bangladesh's industrial sector has historically been a laggard on renewables compared with its garment exporters' publicised sustainability commitments. A single large conglomerate joining a 400 member global club is a symbolic first, not a structural shift, but symbolism carries weight in a market where buyers are already diversifying away from Bangladeshi sourcing partly over cost and partly over compliance concerns, a dynamic BD Financial Review has tracked through September's export figures.

The World Bank team is in town for the harder problem

While AkijBashir's move is about one company's electricity sourcing, the World Bank delegation led by Pankaj Gupta, the lender's regional director for South Asia infrastructure, is in Dhaka to discuss something closer to the root of the pressure: how the country pays for energy at all. The team's agenda covers financing for fuel imports, LNG cost management, renewable energy expansion, private investment and institutional capacity building, alongside a long list of infrastructure projects including the Bay Terminal in Chattogram, the Dhaka-Chattogram logistics corridor, railway development and water resource management.

The financial backdrop to that visit is stark. The World Bank has already committed $700 million toward LNG financing under its Energy Sector Security Enhancement Project, split between an original $350 million approved in June 2025 and a second $350 million tranche approved in May 2026. Even with that support, the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation lost roughly Tk22,876 crore between March and August this year alone because of high international fuel prices and transport costs. That single figure helps explain why a company announcing solar commitments and a multilateral lender discussing LNG financing are, in effect, two sides of the same conversation about how Bangladesh keeps the lights on without bankrupting its state fuel importer.

The roadmap both of these fit into

The government's new energy roadmap, presented to the administration on September 14 and reported in detail this week, gives both stories a frame. It targets 12,940 megawatts of new capacity between 2028 and 2030 to meet peak demand projected at 20,000 to 25,000 megawatts, with 10,000 megawatts of that increase expected to come from solar and the remainder from coal projects at Barapukuria, Payra and Matarbari. Solar incentives for 2026-27 are substantial on paper: import duties on solar equipment cut from 64 percent to just 1 percent, advance income tax cut from 15 percent to 1 percent, and a purchase tariff set at Tk10.50 per unit. As of late September, 1,400 applicants had already collected submission forms for public-private solar projects in Sirajganj, Sonagazi and Rampal.

Electricity demand itself is climbing quickly, up 17 percent year over year to 18,178 megawatts by mid September, from 15,570 megawatts the previous September, which is part of why the roadmap also keeps gas, coal and liquid fuel firmly in the near term mix even as it talks up renewables for the long run. Research director Khondaker Golam Moazzem has already flagged a gap between ambition and arithmetic, saying the plan "lacks rigorous integrated financial analysis and clear funding sources," while energy analyst Shafiqul Alam struck a more optimistic note, arguing renewables "will play a crucial role" and that the government is "rightly prioritising the sector," especially as global financing for new coal plants keeps drying up.

Reading the three stories together

None of this week's energy news is really a single story. It is a company making a voluntary brand commitment, a lender assessing how to finance fuel imports and grid infrastructure, and a ministry trying to sequence tens of thousands of megawatts of new capacity against a government balance sheet already strained by a Tk22,876 crore fuel-import loss in six months. The solar incentive numbers in the new roadmap, a 64 to 1 percent cut in import duty, suggest the government is trying to make private capital, the kind AkijBashir is already deploying at the 90 megawatt scale, do more of the heavy lifting than state spending can.

Item	Figure
AkijBashir's current solar capacity	Approximately 90 MW
World Bank LNG financing commitment (two tranches)	$700 million ($350m in June 2025, $350m in May 2026)
Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation losses, March to August 2026	Tk22,876 crore
New capacity targeted for 2028 to 2030	12,940 MW (10,000 MW solar)
Solar equipment import duty, 2026-27	Cut from 64% to 1%
Electricity demand, September 2026 vs September 2025	18,178 MW, up 17% from 15,570 MW

What to watch next

The World Bank delegation's visit runs through October 7, and any communique at the end of it, particularly on fuel import financing or additional LNG tranches, will be a more concrete signal than this week's announcements on their own. Whether other large industrial groups follow AkijBashir into RE100 or similar commitments will say more about where Bangladesh's renewable transition is actually headed than any single roadmap target, since those targets have slipped before under financing and land constraints that Moazzem's warning was pointed directly at.