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Bangladesh overtakes India in per capita GDP: IMF






Sorry to say, but very few in the region think like you.


We are a region of apes.

No it is the right attitude. Remember we should always COMPETE and try to outdo each other on the economic front. I fully support all discussions that bring up BD's accomplishments Vs Indian. That's how we get better. Let's face it, if China was not such a massive factor looming over the subcontinent India would never have pulled itself with the bootstraps trying to build infra and change policy.

But the only requirement is that in the cumulative everyone must be ahead...
 
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It will only be a matter of time before Sub-Saharan Africa also overtakes India in GDP per capita.
imagine african countries panic buying 100 billion dollars of lethal weapons when their people shit & die in streets. no that will never happen. it's just Indian swag.
 
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Only for 2020.
In the very same paper IMF released, it was written that in 2021, India's per capita income will grow at 8.8% against Bangladesh's 5.4%. And that in 2021 India per capita will reach to $2,001 and Bangladesh will be $1900. Reading half things.

Why is it such a big deal??

Doesn't really jive with the racist/communal BJP narrative, is that it?

Need to widen your vision and be a better citizen of the world.

It is quite presumable that India was never that 'Mahaan' to start with anyway (It can't be anybody's measuring stick globally), and you are now reduced to d*ck-measure with a country one-eighth your size (which may be better managed in most regards).

Like @DalalErMaNodi said, we don't care about another starving country next door lacking in the basics of hygiene. Can't be our role model.

But it is not us - who are dreaming of and making movies about white servers and bell boys in the 'new India'.
 
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Why is it such a big deal??

Doesn't really jive with the racist/communal BJP narrative, is that it?

Need to widen your vision and be a better citizen of the world.

It is quite presumable that India was never that 'Mahaan' to start with anyway (It can't be anybody's measuring stick globally), and you are now reduced to d*ck-measure with a country one-eighth your size (which may be better managed in most regards).

Like @DalalErMaNodi said, we don't care about another starving country next door lacking in the basics of hygiene. Can't be our role model.
India is only a role model of how a country should not seek to be ... pack everything wrong in the world into a single country and you get India :D .
 
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Fine. How about electronics? Smart phones? Bangladesh 7 million vs India's 158 million in 2019. While Bangladesh majority of smartphones (70%) are less than 8000 taka. India's smart phone average cost is 17000 rupees.

View attachment 679518

Stop digging when you are already in a hole.

85% of the cellphones used in Bangladesh are assembled locally which includes even Samsung Note versions. Rickshaw pullers don't buy those of course.

Indian cars. cellphones or appliances never found any market in Bangladesh, except maybe cheapest trucks and buses which are hazards on the roads. These have made Indian products synonymous with 'Junk'.

Bangladesh has indigenous brands which make phones from SMD/SMT component level into circuit boards (not assemble them like in India from imported China parts, the absolute worst that they offer).

We have been doing this for decades. Blame your fly-by-night Banya cheaters. Vijay Mallya is their hero. Run away to UK with hundreds of crores of Rupees.

Generally speaking - Bangladeshi spending habits are far less 'kanjoos' when compared to that of India. When we go visit India we see this with our own eyes, even in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi.

No one in Bangladesh finishes lunch with a burnt Chapati and half an onion.
 
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No it is the right attitude. Remember we should always COMPETE and try to outdo each other on the economic front. I fully support all discussions that bring up BD's accomplishments Vs Indian. That's how we get better. Let's face it, if China was not such a massive factor looming over the subcontinent India would never have pulled itself with the bootstraps trying to build infra and change policy.

But the only requirement is that in the cumulative everyone must be ahead...

In Bangladesh we are the strongest critics of our country, our governance, our leadership, their decisions about our economy etc. etc.

No one in Bangladesh equates devotion to one specific religiosity (or political cult) with patriotism.

We are putting up with our current one-party govt. (flawed that they are) because they show RESULTS.

This comes from feet planted strongly in the ground on practicality, not dreamy lofty pie-in-the-sky ideals that harken back to some vedic age of questionable relevance to today's world.

More importantly, Bangladesh was founded (and still is based on) religious harmony, and the realization that religious identity is not written on anyone's forehead (Gerua or Green). We will forcibly maintain that parity, if need be.

Progress is not possible with exclusionary principles, whether gender exclusion or religious exclusion. These principles - if used to lead a nation, are doomed to fail the nation itself.
 
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Look East, India: Bangladesh is about to get past India economically. There are lessons for us

October 15, 2020, 2:15 AM IST TOI Edit in TOI Editorials |Economy, Edit Page, India, Times View, World | TOI


In India’s overheated political rhetoric, references to Bangladesh are mostly negative.

The salient characterisation is that it’s an economic basket case, forcing desperate job seekers to cross illegally into India. Current evidence, however, indicates otherwise. IMF forecasts that Bangladesh will edge past India this year in per capita GDP.

Bangladesh’s economic progress has been consistent, signifying that its gains are durable.

Over the last eight years, its economy expanded for a while by over 6%, then 7% before it hit 8.2% in 2019. In a world undermined by the pandemic, Bangladesh’s export oriented economy is forecast to expand 3.8% this year. India’s trajectory is a marked contrast. Its growth rate has been uneven and this year IMF projects a contraction of 10.3%. If there was a moment of divergence, it has to be 2017. Following the ill-conceived demonetisation India’s growth rate sputtered, while Bangladesh’s expansion only got faster.

Per capita GDP weaves in another measure that is the stuff of hope – and trope. Bangladesh’s fertility rate has fallen faster than India, and at 2 it’s below the replacement rate.

As a Muslim majority country, this belies the right wing myth that Muslims (in general) reproduce faster than Hindus (in general). As an outlier in economic performance, Bangladesh holds lessons for us.

The springboard for its growth has been a tighter integration into global value chains for textiles. India, however, has reverted to its old import substitution approach by using tariffs to protect domestic industry. An export-oriented approach remains the best bet to revive India’s economic performance. The government must also expand economic cooperation and connectivity with Bangladesh, one of our best friends in the neighbourhood.

Beijing is courting Dhaka as well, and if we diss Bangladesh for petty reasons of domestic politics we will lose the economic as well as the strategic game.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
 
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This is the story referred to - in the commentary from 'The Print' above.


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With better development indicators, spectre of a Bangladeshi cross-over to India is ill-founded

In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, Bangladesh has fared better than India. Even on the cricket pitch, Bangladesh beat India at the junior world cup. So why would Bangladeshis en masse want to leave their cherished homeland?
Written by Swati Narayan | Updated: February 14, 2020 11:07:30 am

In an age of dog-whistle scaremongering, a Union minister alleged on February 9 that, “half of Bangladesh will come to India if citizenship is offered.” But no crystal ball prediction could be more deluded. This year Bangladesh’s economic growth rate has surpassed India. In the last decade, on a range of social development indicators, from infant mortality to immunisation, Bangladesh has fared better. Even on the cricket pitch, Bangladesh beat India at the junior world cup. So why would Bangladeshis en masse want to leave their cherished homeland?

Undoubtedly, since economic liberalisation, Indians have grown much richer than Bangladeshis, but in terms of quality of life our neighbour largely outshines us. India trails across several (not all) composite indices from the latest Global Hunger Index to the Gender Development Index. Even on the 2019 World Happiness Index, Bangladeshis score better. While, technically, on the Human Development Index, Bangladesh scores marginally less, this is largely because the index merges income and non-income parameters.

My recent doctoral thesis sought to decode precisely this South Asian puzzle. How have India’s poorer neighbours forged ahead in social development? In the case of Bangladesh, the most prominent factor has been the country’s ability to dissolve inequalities through sustained investment in public services and the bridging of social and gender distances.

First, healthcare. Till the Eighties, Indians lived longer than most South Asians. But now, despite being poorer, an average Bangladeshi female child at birth can expect to live for four years more. Fewer Bangladeshi children also die before their fifth birthday. The formula for this success has been relatively simple. Since 2009, the government has constructed well-stocked “community clinics” in every third village. In addition, for four decades, committed cadres of government health workers have delivered medicines and family planning to women in the comfort of their homes.


Second, on the education front, even though India has a demographic dividend, Bangladesh has achieved a marginal advantage in youth literacy. Further, across income quintiles, Bangladeshi girls have higher educational attainments than boys. Most importantly, my doctoral survey in Panchagarh district found that Bangladeshi children had better reading skills than the Indian average as assessed by Pratham. Across 44 Bangladeshi schools, there were lower levels of teacher absenteeism. Further, the government provides free textbooks in the government, non-government (NGO) and madrassa-run schools promptly at the start of the academic year, without the chronic delays which plague India.

Economist Jean Drèze has aptly described India as amongst the world champions in social underspending. In contrast, Bangladesh despite being a poorer neighbour since the Nineties, has spent a greater proportion of government expenditure on education and healthcare. The fruits of these sustained investments have reaped rich dividends.

Third, on the nutrition front too, Bangladesh fares better. Thirtythree per cent of Bangladeshi children are underweight compared to India’s 36 per cent as per the demographic health surveys. Similarly, a greater proportion of Indian children are also stunted. Further, the inequality between wealth quintiles is more stark in India. A few years ago, the Bangladeshi government, with the help of NGOs, hired a unique cadre of “Pushti Apas” (nutrition sisters) who went door-to-door in their social endeavours. Unlike the Indian Poshan Abhiyan’s focus on vegetarian foods, they did not shy away from teaching mothers to feed growing infants a balanced diet with mashed fish, meat and eggs.

Editorial | It may be diplomatically imprudent to alienate Bangladesh with CAA premise

Fourth, even at the turn of the millennium, at least 80 per cent of Bangladeshi homes had toilets, even if rudimentary. By 2016, 96 per cent of households and 80 per cent of schools in my doctoral survey had proper sanitation. Apart from the typical Islamic emphasis on hygiene, local governments not only provide cement rings for free to poor families, but they also regularly spread messages through community group discussions, mosques, mass media and schools. Local entrepreneurs have also ensured that with the innovation of plastic pans, the cheapest toilets cost less than Chinese mobile phones.

That apart, Bangladeshi women are also increasingly assertive. The 2006 World Bank Survey on Gender Norms found a growing trend of “educational hypogamy”. In sharp contrast to India’s decline, Bangladeshi women also have higher labour force participation. Apart from the urban readymade garment sector, thousands of rural women work in agro-processing tea factories, jute mills, poultry and dairy industries. Every morning, streams of women in saris can be seen walking towards these factories with characteristic steel lunch dabbas in their arms.

In comparison, India is grappling with the worst unemployment levels in 45 years and sinking economic growth rates. Government ministers should pull up their own socks, instead. Berating our neighbours with the false bogey of illegal immigrants, in light of the Citizenship Amendment Act, is nothing but an unjustifiable Islamophobic distraction. Instead, it would be far wiser for the Indian government to humbly learn the recipe of South Asian success to improve the lives of citizens from the impressive “Shonar Bangla”.

This article first appeared in the print edition on February 14, 2020 under the title ‘Bangladesh fares better’. The writer is a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Development.
 
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Stop digging when you are already in a hole.

85% of the cellphones used in Bangladesh are assembled locally which includes even Samsung Note versions. Rickshaw pullers don't buy those of course.

Indian cars. cellphones or appliances never found any market in Bangladesh, except maybe cheapest trucks and buses which are hazards on the roads. These have made Indian products synonymous with 'Junk'.

Bangladesh has indigenous brands which make phones from SMD/SMT component level into circuit boards (not assemble them like in India from imported China parts, the absolute worst that they offer).

We have been doing this for decades. Blame your fly-by-night Banya cheaters. Vijay Mallya is their hero. Run away to UK with hundreds of crores of Rupees.

Generally speaking - Bangladeshi spending habits are far less 'kanjoos' when compared to that of India. When we go visit India we see this with our own eyes, even in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi.

No one in Bangladesh finishes lunch with a burnt Chapati and half an onion.
Only thing you bongos keep repeating is this. We eat more. Lol.
 
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In Bangladesh we are the strongest critics of our country, our governance, our leadership, their decisions about our economy etc. etc.

No one in Bangladesh equates devotion to one specific religiosity (or political cult) with patriotism.

We are putting up with our current one-party govt. (flawed that they are) because they show RESULTS.

This comes from feet planted strongly in the ground on practicality, not dreamy lofty pie-in-the-sky ideals that harken back to some vedic age of questionable relevance to today's world.

More importantly, Bangladesh was founded (and still is based on) religious harmony, and the realization that religious identity is not written on anyone's forehead (Gerua or Green). We will forcibly maintain that parity, if need be.

Progress is not possible with exclusionary principles, whether gender exclusion or religious exclusion. These principles - if used to lead a nation, are doomed to fail the nation itself.

continuing with your presumptions isn't going to get you anywhere. In fact in the BD crowd I would consider people like you to be a big threat to growth, especially if you reach decision making.

You think Modi's pitching his next elections on his ideas around religion? Look again- he has pushed through the single biggest Agri reform bill in Indian history- something that no one in the 70 year history of Congress has attempted till now. Whether there is a doubling of farm income in the next 5 years or not, there definitely will be a noticeable and substantial increase. Enough to win him elections.

So the valuable lesson of big mouth doesn't compensate for hard knowledge should become clear to you. It
Just a couple of years back, Indians were like "Move over, China"!

That's gonna be true for sure in the next few years. The whole world wants you out of their supply chains and global bodies.
 
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India Gov (including states) revenue actuals in 2019-20 is $650 billion. While Bangladesh is $30 billion. There is something really fishy.
What is your source of this $650 billion? According to World Bank, India's 2018 tax revenue was 12% of GDP while for Bangladesh it was 8.8% in 2016(most probably 9% by 2018).

If we calculate the amount from 2019 GDP of both countries, it translate to $345 billion for India and $27.2 for Bangladesh
So, India's tax revenue is 12.7 times of Bangladesh(population 8 times more). Which is reasonable given that Bangladesh historically was behind of India in tax collection. Until 1990, Bangladesh's tax collection was almost nil. Eighty-five percent of budget money used to come from Foreign aid. While it was not the case with India. It is such a huge country that can not depends on foreign aid. So India had robust tax collection mechanism from the beginning(1947). So this disparity(12% vs 9%) do not cancel the chance of Bangladesh recently overtaking India in per capita GDP.
 
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What is your source of this $650 billion? According to World Bank, India's 2018 tax revenue was 12% of GDP while for Bangladesh it was 8.8% in 2016(most probably 9% by 2018).

If we calculate the amount from 2019 GDP of both countries, it translate to $345 billion for India and $27.2 for Bangladesh
So, India's tax revenue is 12.7 times of Bangladesh(population 8 times more). Which is reasonable given that Bangladesh historically was behind of India in tax collection. Until 1990, Bangladesh's tax collection was almost nil. Eighty-five percent of budget money used to come from Foreign aid. While it was not the case with India. It is such a huge country that can not depends on foreign aid. So India had robust tax collection mechanism from the beginning(1947). So this disparity(12% vs 9%) do not cancel the chance of Bangladesh recently overtaking India in per capita GDP.
India has states too. They have their own collection.

For example Maharastra.

Own tax revenue: Total own tax revenue of Maharashtra is estimated to be Rs 2,25,071 ($30 billion) crore in 2020-21.

Own tax revenue: Total own tax revenue of Karnataka is estimated to be Rs 1,11,991 crore ($15 billion) in 2020-21

Own tax revenue: Total own tax revenue of Tamil Nadu is estimated to be Rs 1,33,530 crore ($19 billion) in 2020-21

Uttar Pradesh: 1,89,592 crore ($25 billion)

Total own tax revenue of Andhra Pradesh is estimated to be Rs 70,679 crore in 2020-21 ($10 billion).

Total own tax revenue of Telangana is estimated to be Rs 85,300 crore in 2020-21 ($ 12 billion)

Own tax revenue: Total own tax revenue of Gujarat is estimated to be Rs 1,05,094 crore in 2020-21 ($15 billion)

Own tax revenue
: Total own tax revenue of Rajasthan is estimated to be Rs 77,030 crore in 2020-21 ($10 billion)

I have given you own tax collections of 8 states. We have 29 states in all.

20201015_103831.jpg
 
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Indians buy 3 million cars
Car is much more expensive in Bangladesh which exceed the minimum thresh hold to be bought by middle class. In India car is much cheaper and most the public buy small car whose price comes within the purchasing power of the middle class. If we had domestic car production and similar cheap, tiny car used by India, our car sale also would have been 10 times more than what it is today.
1 million tractors, 800000 commercial trucks
It is actually 709k tractor.
Tractor Sales in India Crossed 700 Thousand Units in FY 2020
Tractor is more necessary in wheat cultivation. Tractor in India mostly used in Western part of the country where wheat cultivation dominate.
Bangladesh is wet rice farming country. farmers can do without tractor. It is only recently that farmers are buying agricultural mechinery as a response to agricultural labor shortage.
800000 commercial trucks
I doubt this figure. Are you saying Indian buy 1 commercial truck for every 4 car? What is the use of so many trucks?
540000 motorcycles.
Bangladesh only recently started domestic motorcycle production thus price came down only recently. Sales are growing very fast. Within 10 years gap with India will be closed.
India sells 131 million domestic flight tickets.
It is understandable considering the distance. Most of these ticket are long distance like Delhi to Mumbai or Chennai etc. In such distances, it is often more reasonable to buy ticket of budget airlines then taking 30 hours train journey. Which is exactly the case with India.Our distance is not like that. For comparing Bangladesh you have to consider shorter distance like intrastate air passenger within Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu.

Bangladesh's domestic air passenger is about 2 million and rising very fast.

None of these data cancel the possibility of why Bangladesh can not cross India's GDP per capita this year. Bangladesh and India are two different type of country with different size, different requirement, different climate, different post independence industrial and monetary policy and so on. So in some metric India is ahead while Bangladesh is ahead in other matrics. We are ahead of India in socio-economic and human development while India still has upper hand when in comes to physical infrastructure and vehicle uses.
 
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Car is much more expensive in Bangladesh which exceed the minimum thresh hold to be bought by middle class. In India car is much cheaper and most the public buy small car whose price comes within the purchasing power of the middle class. If we had domestic car production and similar cheap, tiny car used by India, our car sale also would have been 10 times more than what it is today.

It is actually 709k tractor.
Tractor Sales in India Crossed 700 Thousand Units in FY 2020
Tractor is more necessary in wheat cultivation. Tractor in indis mostly used in Western part of the country where wheat cultivation dominate.
Bangladesh is wet rice farming country. farmers can do without tractor. It is only recently that farmers are buying agricultural mechinery as a response to agricultural labor shortage.

I doubt this figure. Are you saying Indian buy 1 commercial truck for every 4 car? What is the use of so many trucks?

Bangladesh only recently started domestic motorcycle production thus price came down only recently. Sales are growing very fast. Within 10 years gap with India will be closed.

It is understandable considering the distance. Most of these ticket are long distance like Delhi to Mumbai or Chennai etc. In such distances, it is often more reasonable to buy ticket of budget airlines then taking 30 hours train journey. Which is exactly the case with India.Our distance is not like that. For comparing Bangladesh you have to consider shorter distance like intrastate air passenger within Maharashtra or Tamil Nadu.

Bangladesh's domestic air passenger is about 2 million and rising very fast.

You don't need to dissect each of those, I was referring to them as a source of consumption. What exactly is the consumption in Bangladesh?

Given each has a savings rate of 30%, and similar per capita, Indian consumption is off the chart. Smartphones are basic these days, your sales are 7 million (70% < 8000 taka).
 
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