Rizwan bin Farouq: Developing a transnational catering industry.
Rizwan Bin Farouq is the Managing Director of the Tommy Miah’s Institute of Hospitality and Management. He went abroad to access better employment opportunities. In Hong Kong he built up his career in the banking sector, but then decided to come back and set up in different business sectors in Bangladesh. He was a key figure in setting up the Chittagong Stock Exchange and he also popularised IT education through APTECH, a leading IT training institute. Along with the internationally renowned chef Tommy Miah he has recently established a restaurant called Heritage.

Born, brought up and educated in Bangladesh, I left for Hong Kong. I spent ten years in banking and thirteen years altogether in the financial sector before I came back, with a vision to setup business.

Why did I come back? In 1993 there was a booming and emerging market and after acquiring skills in the overseas capital market, I thought I needed to do something here. Because Bangladesh was a closed market I contacted Saifur Rahman the Finance Minister. After the market opened I came back to Bangladesh and decided to invest here. I set up a venture capital firm in Hong Kong, and we took 30percent of our accrual in the Bangladeshi market. People then were very excited about the emerging market here. In 1996 there was a boom and crash so I diversified into a property developing company and then into IT education, APTECH, which now has 40 centres. Last year I set up Heritage restaurant and I am currently setting up the Heritage institution. I diversified into hospitality because food production and food service, bakery, housekeeping, laundry, hotel management and tour operation are large sectors over here. There is a lot of activity worldwide in this sector and every country is trying to attract more foreigners. This leisure industry is becoming a culture even in Bangladesh. Tourism has a very good prospect in Bangladesh and there is also the growth of a holiday culture that is generating internal tourists.

People like to travel and take holidays and the tourism council reports that travel and tourists generate over 10 percent of the world’s total GDP and supplies 8 percent of total jobs in the world market. Developing countries are actually suffering because of a shortage in this industry, but in Bangladesh this is changing. The worldwide hospitality industry is the fastest growing industry creating new job opportunities. We have set up the institute called Tommy Miah Institute of Hospitality Management to train this sector.

Rizwan Bin Farouq from his experiences abroad learnt about the burgeoning importance of the hospitality industry in the global economy. While many countries are trying to attract more tourists to earn more foreign exchange there exists an acute shortage of skilled labour in this sector. He realised that the hospitality sector provided more employment opportunities than many others and that Bangladesh could play a major role in providing this skilled labour.