Bangladesh will need at least two years to stabilise the energy sector and the wider economy, Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury said, warning that the government cannot promise a quicker fix.

"It makes no sense to give people false hope by saying that we will solve all the problems tomorrow or the day after. We need at least two years," he told a meeting of the Foreign Investors' Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in Dhaka on Monday.

Under the government's plan, the economy including the energy sector will be stabilised within the first two years, gain momentum in the third year and make a full recovery in the fourth and fifth, he said. He urged businesses to prepare for stronger activity in that period.

Khosru said the country had already spent about $7 billion out of pocket because of higher global energy costs since the Middle East war began, on top of debts and liabilities inherited from the previous government.

He outlined plans to bring three to four floating storage and regasification units into operation with private investors from South Korea, China and the United States, though he cautioned that such facilities take about 18 months to develop. The government is also discussing onshore LNG terminals and has identified sites at Matarbari and near Khulna, where a water depth of about 20 metres would allow large vessels to unload.

On domestic supply, he said the state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company would expand onshore and offshore drilling, and that production-sharing contracts were being finalised. The government also aims to add about 10 gigawatts of solar capacity, with tax incentives for solar infrastructure and rules allowing households to sell surplus electricity to the grid.

An energy security plan is expected to be completed by June, Khosru said, with key infrastructure to follow over about two and a half years. At the same event, IEEFA analyst Shafiqul Alam warned that domestic gas reserves could be depleted by 2036 without major new discoveries.