Bangladesh Economic & Infrastructure Development - Updates & Discussions

[Bilal9]

In other news - I saw that British Luxury Shaving products brand 'Truefitt & Hill' is opening a Bangladesh outlet soon.

Yes gentlemen, you too now can be a proud owner of Spanish Leather Cologne for BDT 5300/- excluding VAT.

Sigh -sign of the times. I'm sure there is no dearth of takers for their wares.

Never mind that is half a month's salary for some workers.

If the average household income is going down while the rich class is rising, it shows the elite is ripping off the poor and the disparity is growing.

Unequal development is a sign of the times now in South Asia.In fact that is how it was when the Asian tigers were rising a decade ago, until they stagnated.

At least in Bangladesh - NGO's have formed some safety net for the poor, unlike the rest of South Asia.

 

[Nilgiri]

Anyway, as is seen with all South Asian countries, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Demonstrably true in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

Don't know about Pakistan, but India does not have real household income decrease like seen in Bangladesh under the BBS study.

The poor are not getting poorer in India:

https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/india/household-final-consumption-expenditure

In fact India is doing lot better than Bangladesh in removing extreme poverty:

https://worldpoverty.io/

It is another question as to why the recent BD HIES data conflicts with the (older) world bank data (which shows a more measured increase in real HFCE for BD instead of a decrease):

https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/bangladesh/household-final-consumption-expenditure

Probably when everything is kept as Taka calculation only, there is no artificial RMG based quota bump that happens because of USD (which is not legal tender in BD)....and changing household size in BD as well.

At least in Bangladesh - NGO's have formed some safety net for the poor, unlike the rest of South Asia.

Another lie. Expect nothing more from you. The only "safety net" in Bangladesh is fake number feelz like 3 million.

Teenage pregnancy rate and birth rate dissonance with the claimed TFR are two massive indications that Bangladesh fakes its numbers...but does this faking quite badly.

If the average household income is going down while the rich class is rising, it shows the elite is ripping off the poor and the disparity is growing.

Yes, Bangladesh is only country where this is happening in South Asia it looks like (the rest the situation is the rich and poor are both improving their lot, but rich are improving it faster - common trend worldwide). Mind you it wasnt even considered in the HIES study...they deliberately did not report this trend (i.e by factoring in inflation to get real income rather than just nominal). It took Mr. Taslim ( a rare woke guy in BD it seems) in his article to point that out...and also point out that per capita calorie consumption is also decreasing in BD according to the data.

There is either some really bad going on behind the scenes in BD or BBS is very bad institutionally (and thus cannot be cherry picked for other more rosy data)....or both.

 

[war&peace]

In other news - I saw that British Luxury Shaving products brand 'Truefitt & Hill' is opening a Bangladesh outlet soon.

Yes gentlemen, you too now can be a proud owner of Spanish Leather Cologne for BDT 5300/- excluding VAT.

Sigh -sign of the times. I'm sure there is no dearth of takers for their wares.

Never mind that is half a month's salary for some workers.

Unequal development is a sign of the times now in South Asia.In fact that is how it was when the Asian tigers were rising a decade ago, until they stagnated.

At least in Bangladesh - NGO's have formed some safety net for the poor, unlike the rest of South Asia.

Not really. Asian tigers had much better developmental curve. Though the rich grew faster there as well but the poverty reduced as well and average household income went up. The same thing happened during Musharraf's time that the number of rich increased but the same time overall society became rich and poverty reduced.

 

[Nilgiri]

What a bunch of lies. India is doing poorly when it comes to this. The nation has been stagnating for years. Whereas in Bangladesh things are only improving.

Here is a piece about India if you're interested in cold hard facts.



NEW DELHI: Inequality in India is on the rise for the last three decades, so much so that the total wealth of Indian billionaires is 15 per cent of the GDP, thanks to the "lopsided" policies of successive governments, Oxfam India said in a report today.

It said the wealthiest in India have cornered a huge part of the wealth created in the country through crony capitalism and inheritance, while people at the bottom are seeing their shares being reduced further.

"These inequali ..

Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/63030012.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

If rich get richer faster than the poor get richer, the Gini coefficient (And % consumption shares) of course get changed.

That is very different from poor getting poorer. If the poor are getting poorer in India, why does India have 4 times the targetted escape rate for poverty?

Check yourself:

https://worldpoverty.io/

Its funny you quote Oxfam. Want me to show you how Bangladesh does in their multi-poverty index compared to India?

 

[Nilgiri]

Not really. Asian tigers had much better developmental curve. Though the rich grew faster there as well but the poverty reduced as well and average household income went up. The same thing happened during Musharraf's time that the number of rich increased but the same time overall society became rich and poverty reduced.

Yes this is inevitable trend for development. There will always be people more suited (generally already middle class or rich) to make use of some kind of change/reform in economy. But if supply side economics is allowed to take shape (with minimal govt bureaucratic intervention for political feelz etc)....then the people with fewer resources over time improve their lot through access to the larger market created higher up etc. But the thing in parantheses (economic reform through less bureaucracy + more credit access and liquidity competition etc) is very important, the govt has to not intervene too much in the process, but in South Asia politics and status quo is big business for the elitists as you know.

East Asian Tigers bypassed a lot of the political nonsense is the key difference.

 

[Chakar The Great]

The middle class in Pakistan is greater than India and Bangladesh in relative terms. The number of super rich people in Pakistan is much lower than India.

Earlier this year there was an excellent article in "the economist" titled missing middle class in India, we also know that 79% of wealth went to 1% of Indian population. So one can imagine, how easy its to distort figures.

I also believe that over all poverty has reduced in India. No more deaths from starvation or hunger. India still has a long way to go.

Source: India’s missing middle class

 

[Nilgiri]

Pretty much shows India has the highest amount of people in extreme poverty after Nigeria. Whereas Bangladesh has improved dramatically in the last 25 years even though it was a newly-formed country just a few decades ago.

Bangladesh has double the % rate than India of people in extreme poverty....and a lower escape rate ratio (to target) than India too. Its per capita consumption (household or not) in real (PPP) terms is also about half of India.

The middle class in Pakistan is greater than India and Bangladesh in relative terms. The number of super rich people in Pakistan is much lower than India.

There is not good data standards/references for the comparison of consumption strata still.

The only things that have some commonality are extreme poverty rate and total GDP/wealth etc....doing the surveying of income spreads bring many flaws. All countries need to keep increasing the total (while this data shadow exists) and keep doing economic reforms is the key thing. Later we can do the better surveying of Gini coefficient etc when the countries are above 10k per capita in production and there is actual enough resources to survey this well.

 

[Chakar The Great]

Exactly. Bangladesh understandably so doesn't yet have as much people reaching the middle-class stage being born decades after Pak and India. But it's quite right of me to say Bangladesh is steadily reaching a stage where more and more will become middle-class if we keep up the rapid-pace we are going at and focus heavily on infrastructure and innovation.

Well done, keep it up. A prosperous and developed Bangladesh is in interest of the region and Pakistan.

 

[Nilgiri]

To put it bluntly, a prosperous South Asia is in the best interest of all nations within it. The British left us in dismal fashion and I hope we can regain what we once were inshAllah.

Fair enough bud. Hope to have some positive discussion with you on this forum...I take a tough argument stance sometimes to produce a good serious discussion of some issues....so don't take it wrong way.

 

[Nilgiri]

Being Sylheti, we have a super-rich tradition. My ancestry goes all the way back to Yemen. But I remember my Great Aunt telling me the family settling their after years of travel (we still have the written letter in beautiful Arabic by ancestor from way back) , which is nuts because of how prosperous Bengal was under the Mughals. And to see what the British has done to us is truly saddening. I want nothing more than to see all countries in South Asian prosper and get along. Is that too much to ask for?

Yep my family has many long stories regarding deindustrialisation, de-education, pitting castes/religions against each other etc...that British engaged in to create easy rule and captive market since their landing in Fort St George area on my state east cost (And expanded the model everywhere in subcontinent). Biggest forced wealth transfer in history of mankind...it will take long time to recover, but we will get there again, no worries. We all learned the lesson deep down (past the current bickering) to always ensure we are in charge of our own destinies....and create our successes again instead of playing blame game and becoming dependent on other elitists again.

 

[Bilal9]

Here is a PDF on the activities of one of some of the smaller NGO's 'Build Bangladesh' and Spark Bangladesh. The rate of activity for corporate citizenship is rather high in Bangladesh (as compared to the rest of South Asia), especially by NGO's like BRAC and GRAMEEN.

http://www.buildbangladesh.org.bd/_pdf/bb-story.pdf

http://www.inclusivebd.org/spark-bangladesh.php

Here is how Grameen is helping Indian poor counter unequal development in their country,

https://grameenfoundation.org/where-we-work/asia/india

And BRAC is helping the same process in Pakistan too.

https://www.facebook.com/BRACPAK/

 

[fallstuff]

Oh God, do not revive this industry !!
Their acting skills are a complete abomination. Its like 'wooden doll with moving lips.'

 

[Michael Corleone]

Being Sylheti, we have a super-rich tradition. My ancestry goes all the way back to Yemen. I remember my Great Aunt telling me the story of how my family settled their after months of travel (we still have the written letter in beautiful Arabic by ancestor from way back) , which is nuts because of how prosperous Bengal was under the Mughals. And to see what the British has done to us is truly saddening. I want nothing more than to see all countries in South Asian prosper and get along. Is that too much to ask for?

same case here/ however we were turkic... and originally from the west pakistan... i still have family apparently in punjab and in other parts of bd whom i never met. but i wouldn't blame it all on the british... without them/
we would not have any 20th century industries in the region... japan would have definitely conquered the region and use the resources for imperialistic goals.
conditions of UK isn't any good nowadays, their country is an empty shell compared to the past.
many british companies are now owned by indian companies... karma is getting back at them i guess

 

[Nike]

From 2012 to 2017 Bangladesh had the fastest growth for people with net worth of more than $30 Million (termed Super Rich). This is courtesy of Newsweek. Apologies if posted already.

Corrupt practices? When we are looking the average gdp per capita is very small and the number of entrepreunership per capita is small too

https://tech.co/top-15-entrepreneurial-countries-world-2015-06

 

[HariPrasad]

Credit goes to BD PM Hasina. She has governed BD veey ectively and has controled radical elements. Best of luck to BD.