Bangladesh A Promising Country Part-1

Bangladesh A Promising Country Part-1

Writer: Rafi Al Mahmud

Bangladesh: From bottomless basket to ___?

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has stated Bangladesh as a “bottomless basket” in the world. It means that the country was designed to be a hopeless and endless case of international charity! In early days after independence Bangladesh also was designated as a “test case” for development. In the early years of independent Bangladesh:

 Poverty rate was about 70 percent

 Life expectancy was around 50 years

 Population growth rate was more than 3 percent

 Child mortality rate was of 240 per 1,000 births.

 Literacy rate was 16.8 percent in 1972.

 Per capita income was 129 dollar in 1972-73.

 Great geo-political opportunity for strategic location close to China and India.

 Bangladesh’s society of 160 million people is a largely homogeneous society.

 Middle-class people is rising & would be 25% of the total population by 2025.

 Enthusiastic, hardworking cheaper labor supply for any labor-intensive industry.

 Huge demographic dividend has created the window of economic opportunity

 Poverty has been reducing about 2 percent per year

 Electricity generation reached 15,750MW from 3200MW in the last eight years.

 Bangladesh’s dependence on foreign aid had decreased significantly to 1-2 percent of GDP from 12-15 percent of GDP about two decades ago.
 

Bangladesh: The Emerging Tiger of Asia!

 Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in raising income, reducing poverty and outperformed her neighbors in social development.

 Bangladesh has now been upgraded from a low-income country to a “Lower Middle-Income Country” by World Bank since July, 2015.

 Bangladesh has experienced an average GDP growth rate of 6 percent over the past decade. (Ranks 33^rd among 190 countries GDP-PPP)

 Goldman Sachs includes Bangladesh in the "Next 11" emerging countries to watch for along with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China).

 JP Morgan lists Bangladesh among its "Frontier Five" emerging economies worth investing in. Bangladesh is now gradually becoming a “trade-dependent country” instead of an “aiddependent one”

 The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) has said only five countries, including Bangladesh of the 45 least developed countries (LDCs), achieved economic growth at 7 percent or higher in 2017.

 On March, 2018 Bangladesh met all three criteria for graduating from a Least Developed Country (LDC) to a developing one in the first review of Committee for Development Policy (CDP), UN.

 Bangladesh is the only country to have met all these three criteria at the same time and among 47 LDC, only five countries have so far graduated from LDC status.

 If Bangladesh maintains its position in all the three categories for the next six years, it will eventually graduate from the LDC bloc.

GNI Per Capita :  US$1752 (BBS, 2017-18P), $1610 (2016-17) GDP Growth rate 7.65 (BBS, 2017-18P)

Poverty rate High level:     22.3 %, Low level 12.9 %

Life expectancy:   71.6 years

Population growth rate: 1.37 percent

Agriculture: Production increases. Main crops rice, jute, wheat, tea, fish and forestry products.

Industry : Ready-made garments, Jute manufactures, Ship-building, Seafood processing, ICT and Pharmaceuticals.

Labor Force  :  Total labor force (15 years+): 62 million, As many as 8 million Bangladeshis are in abroad in 2016.

Resources :  Natural gas, Abundant proven coal reserves, Offshore and onshore reserves of petroleum.

Fiscal Year :  July 1 to June 30.

Man power in Bangladesh

Currently, about 8 million Bangladeshis work abroad. According to the Bangladesh Bureau on Manpower and Training (BMET), Bangladesh received more than $15 billion as remittances in 2015 up from less than $2 billion in 2000. After a decline in 2017, the remittance inflow is increasing again. Bangladesh foreign exchange reserves has reached US$ 33.02 billion (July, 2017) which is the highest in the history of the country.

Next part is here