Major General Amjad Khan Chowdhury (Retd) was born in Natore in 1940. He was educated in Dhaka and graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy and Australian Staff College. He then joined Pakistan army in 1956. Repatriating to Bangladesh in 1973, he held many important positions including General Officer Commanding at Comilla and Bogra.

And then in 1941 at the age of forty-one, Chowdhury retired and found that he has his whole life ahead of him. A life that is full of possibilities. Gradually he developed a keen interest in the business sector as it was full of challenges and a field where if one shows expertise, one can gain a lot and also create jobs for others. ‘I started reading voraciously on business. After serving in the Armed Forces for 25 years, I knew little about civil life and so I had to educate myself,’ said Chowdhury. He was floored with the comparative advantage theory by Adam Smith in the book called ‘Wealth of Nations.’ ‘With rich alluvial soil, sweet water and a large population, I knew that agriculture was second nature to our people and hence, Bangladesh's comparative advantage lies in creating a competitive edge in value added agricultural products,’ he added. This army officer-turned-businessman is the Chief Executive Officer of a diversified group of companies with interests in apartment, housing and elevators, PVC pipes, irrigation equipments, cast iron and plastic products as well as Agricultural Marketing Co. Ltd-PRAN (AMCL-PRAN).

Chowdhury’s maiden venture PRAN started its journey in 1985. Soon he found out that it’s not the production but the processing which is more important. ‘Processing means adding value and increasing shelf life of a product. And you can not have a good price without good processing’ he stated. And then there was no looking back.

Today, AMCL-PRAN is the first and only food processing company in Bangladesh to earn the prestigious distinction ISO 9001 certificate. ‘This supreme certification ensures that PRAN products reach the consumers maintaining the highest level of quality. Other than this, AMCL-PRAN also have the HALAL & HACCP certificate,’ Chowdhury commented. But the path was not that smooth. The company had seen its own ups and downs and learnt from the pitfalls. Set up in 1991, AMCL achieved social values with sustainable pecuniary advantage for all the stakeholders and has expanded substantially over the years in all spheres of food processing including the installation of Bangladesh's first tetra-pak facility. Machineries for all these lines are installed, expanded, modified and fabricated continuously. In a nutshell, PRAN has increased the shelf-life of the agricultural products.

The Group’s major achievement has been to consolidate fragmented land holdings and to organize farmers into ‘contract grower’ of specific crops for consumption in PRAN’s major processed products. ‘Starting with Chinigura rice in rice fields of Chapai Nababgonj, we focused on moog dal in Natore region’, said the mastermind behind this new yet successful concept. ‘Today,’ he added, ‘this is the largest moog dal growing area in the country providing employment for entire families as opposed to individuals’ Again, the contract farming prevents urban migration which is really very important for our economy and with the elimination of the middlemen; farmers receive fair prices for their products and due to technical assistance from the agro-processing industry, yields, quality and income have risen considerably. Moreover, besides enjoying the Blue-Chip status in the Stock market, the AMCL-PRAN group’s achievements have been more spectacular in the international market. ‘Our most important market is India where our products are solicited. Then comes the Middle East and Africa where our products go to remote places like Luanda in Angola, Djibouti, Addis Ababa, Abidjan in Ivory Coast and the rest, some 70 countries of the world,’ Chowdhury beamed. Rangpur Foundry Limited, which also has the Blue-Chip Status, has done a remarkable job in manufacturing irrigation machineries and recently Rangpur Plastic Limited received rave reviews in a Plastic Fair held in Chicago for the plastic goods it prepared for day to day uses. And the credit goes to this veteran businessman who has been successful in promoting an amalgam of Bangladeshi style of corporate management based on our social values and modern Western and Japanese style.

When asked about the current recession and its effect on the economy of Bangladesh, Chowdhury sounds optimistic and said, ‘Our people are hard working and intelligent and what we need more is a professional attitude and long-term planning in business arena.’ He thinks for a better Bangladesh, education is a must and to ensure the standard, we need a worth-while curriculum. Plus, our infrastructure and banking should be stronger and above all- we badly need a sound law and order situation in the country. Chowdhury thinks the ‘organic food’' is a misconceived idea since only 1-2% of food is organic. Whether it is organic or inorganic he personally prefers to go on production that will create more jobs for people. ‘Our food products are enriched with vitamins and we maintain strict code of conducts to ensure hygiene in every step of collection, processing and marketing,’ said Chowdhury. He also believes that we are at a level where we need basic stuffs so we should exercise more on existing ideas and in this regard, he thinks the young generation should come more in business and take the scenario to a new level.

For Amjad Khan Chowdhury, the credits list keeps going longer. He is the founder-president of Real Estate & Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB), Bangladesh Agro-Processors' Association (BAPA) and a former-president of Underprivileged Children’s Education Program (UCEP). He is an active member of premier trade bodies.

This successful entrepreneur still is an extensive reader. He loves reading books on management, tourism, leadership and corporate development. A big fan of The Economist, he finds the latter impressively educational and intellectually stimulating. Last but not the least; he believes in following the age-old values that we have learnt from childhood and working hard, one can easily achieve the phenomenal success that he enjoys now.

Chowdhury’s latest passion, and probably the last as he says, is promotion of dairy and dairy industry in our country. Dairy fits in most suitably with the corporate mission of PRAN-RFL Group being focused on creating jobs for our teeming unemployed and under employed millions in rural Bangladesh. Dairy creates jobs and indeed wealth with least induction of capital and within the shortest time he asserts. Most of his working time he invests in and for dairy development. So he wishes to see our country exporting dairy products before his death, a tall wish at that.