New Delhi, Dec.21: A young “non-resident Assamese”, Habib Mohammed Chowdhury, is nudging young northeasterners to Look East. He has made a fortune in Lao PDR and has been ploughing back the profits home to Hojai.
“I had $1 when I left Assam in the 1980s,” said Chowdhury, who led the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Lao PDR for the Asean summit in New Delhi this week.
His HSMM Group today has a turnover of $ 200 million or about Rs100 crore.
Chowdhury’s parents, Jahanara and Fazlu Chowdhury, live in Hojai, 136km east of Guwahati. Getting a 7,000 square foot plot in his hometown, the agar oil tycoon, who is in his thirties, is building a three-storied shopping mall in the small town. That one is for home.
Over the past two years, he got in touch with Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio and has signed a contract to extract the perfume oil from agar plantations in that state. Chowdhury said he is now proposing a 10-year buy-back guarantee to planters in Nagaland.
Back in Lao, Chowdhury has four lakh trees, most of them 10 to 12 years old, spread over 9,000 hectares of the Southeast Asian nation. His Lao Agar International Development Corporation claims to be that country’s first multinational company.
After reaching Vientiane in 1997, Chowdhury tried several little projects from money earned in Dubai, some of the projects by tying up with the Lao army, which has a business arm.
He found home in a tree – finding good business in agarwood. Agar (sasi in Assamese), a resinous wood from which essential oil is extracted, is indigenous to Southeast Asia and like several other aspects, also to the Northeast.
“I want people to invest here and people from here to invest in Lao, and meet the extremely warm people there,” said Chowdhury, who today called on Laos Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong here and presented him with a gamocha and other gifts. “He loved it and I felt proud,” said Chowdhury.
The next step for Chowdhury is getting his friends, who are into adventure sports in a big way, to invest in Assam, Mizoram and Nagaland. Resorts will come up with river rafting facilities.
A reciprocal gesture, however, is also being made by some Naga investors who are buying properties in Lao PDR and investing in agriculture and tourism.
One of Northeast’s famous travel agencies, Network, has expressed interest in investment in Lao, said Chowdhury.
“The Lao PDR government is encouraging even small investments in trading of even Rs 3 crore with a single-door clearance,” said the Hojai boy.
