What's holding back Bangladesh?

[KediKesenFare3]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

 

[Matirpola]

@Loki @Bilal9 @TopCat @Kandari-Hushiyaar @Philia @Russell @Doyalbaba @bluesky !

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

Unfortunately, BD lacks the leadership...

 

[Nilgiri]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

Here's a big reason:

http://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2016'

BD corruption is horrible (ranked 145 in the world) and worse not improving (score stagnant since 2012 at least)

Why this is important:

https://defence.pk/threads/sri-lanka-becomes-more-corrupt.474310/page-2#post-9149038

Another big one is the lack of solid human capital development (education, training) compared to even the region....much less compared to brighter success stories in the world.

It is why BD does horrendously badly in the world competitiveness index for example:

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR201...lobalCompetitivenessReport2016-2017_FINAL.pdf

Please read the report in detail, but here is what really struck out to me (page 59):

Comparing BD, India, China, Pakistan, Turkey and USA to cover a regional and global spectrum (higher the score the better):

Education and Skills:

BD: 2.33 (rank 125)
IND: 3.25 (96)
CHN: 3.97 (74)
PAK: 2.27 (128)
TUR: 3.95 (76)
USA: 5.82 (12)

Skills of Current Workforce:

BD: 2.18 (rank 130)
IND: 2.82 (104)
CHN: 3.56 (85)
PAK: 2.37 (118)
TUR: 3.36 (92)
USA: 6.05 (5)

Skills of Future Workforce:

BD: 2.47 (rank 122) (Increase of 0.29)
IND: 3.67 (88) (Increase of 0.85)
CHN: 4.39 (58) (Increase of 0.83)
PAK: 2.17 (128) (Decrease of 0.2) probably due to: http://tribune.com.pk/story/886027/2013-14-report-literacy-rate-slips-nationwide-by-2/
TUR: 4.53 (50) ( Increase of 1.17)
USA: 5.58 (18) (Decrease of 0.47)


So BD workforce is relatively lowly educated and skilled overall...and the skills particularly are not going to increase so much compared to even countries ahead of it at this point and much larger labour force (China,India). But at least it wont decrease as is expected in the case of Pakistan (very worrying if it happens)....so BD can probably be content with 6% growth mid term....but it would probably drop off severely long term if the education/skilling issues is not addressed timely.

So keep this in mind whenever you see the regular crowd here trumpet their "RMG" model and BBS derived statistics....and another crowd trumpeting CPEC as the be all end all in other parts of the forum.

@madokafc @Robinhood Pandey @Gibbs @RiazHaq

 

[Flynn Swagmire]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

Top to bottom corrupt government is holding us back.

 

[Russell]

Falling short compared to what?

Most of this country is uneducated - your analysis of 'good English skills' is so far off base, I don't even know what to say

No major disasters occurred - how far back are we talking here?? Country used to be devastated by horrific floods every other year that would result in millions being displaced and homeless. A situation that costs the country tens of billions of dollars

Bangladesh is a country of a 170 mil where a decade ago the average power production was a mere 3200mw!

Not to mention...when it became independent from the genocidal overlords, it was labeled a 'bottomless basket' and everything depended on handouts from overseas including food and grains.

Your 'analysis' lacks perspective and nuance.

 

[Homo Sapiens]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

Whom we call Asian success story started their journey towards economic liberalization and free market enterprise in 1950s and 1960s.South Korea,Taiwan,Malaysia,Singapore all started around that time.China started economic liberalization in 1978.But Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971 with ruined infrastructure and with very little industry.What little industry was there were nationalized after independence in an attempt to create a socialist economy which proved disastrous,coupled with military coup and rule,first 20 years was total wastage in Bangladesh.

Economic and social progress started after 1991 democratic transition.Our economic growth was average 5 percent in 1990s, 6 percent in 2000s and now more than 7 percent.If no major national or global upheaval occur,we can expect it to accelerate to 8 or 9 percent in near future,which is good pace of development.

 

[oFFbEAT]

IMHO, BD is progressing fairly, but the rate could've been higher had there been no radicalism, a substantial portion of their government's time and resources are spent quelling Islamic extremism which could otherwise be used for developmental purposes.....
Even though BD doesn't have a war going on, a portion of their population is still pro-Pakistan and try to follow their ideology of enmity based on religion instead of trade and commerce, even though their number is small, their misdeeds in the form of killing fellow countrymen, destroying property, disrupting normal activity affects BD as it is a small country as well......this is the only hurdle I see in the path of BD's development....

 

[Razia Sultana]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

I think BD is doing fairly well. Its economy has been growing substantially and consistently. Exports are going north always and it has done substantially well in HDI and reducing poverty.
Its indeed the maturity of Bangladesh people that they have preferred economic growth over political mess. Internally BD has no major threats except ISIS and radicals. On international front also BD has shown progress and maturity and has gained international respect.
Success does not come over night. If they continue the momentum of last one decade, in another decade they will indeed be a success story.

 

[Kandari-Hushiyaar]

BD's positive features:

• extremely homogeneous society
• single language
• cheap labor
• good English skills
• no internal wars or rebellions
• authoritarian leadership to implement much needed reforms regardless of public resistance
• no major natural disasters occurred
• access to the global markets via Indian Ocean
• big consumer markets like India, China, ASEAN in close proximity
• etc.

You have clearly everything that is needed to become another Asian success story, still BD falls short of expectations. But why exactly? Only professional opinions, please.

Relax Bangladesh is doing fine. We have 170 million of people jammed in a tiny place with no natural resources to earn quick money.

 

[TopCat]

It was actually lack of literacy, natuaral calamity and lack of primary capital kept the country in slow progression for the first 3 decades after 1971.

As literacy improved substantially, floods and cyclone is contained and economy generated some wealth, the country is getting ready to go into upper gears. What is needed now is to attract investment in labor intensive high tech value added sectors like electronics, petrochemicals, automobiles, plastics, steels etc. Bangladesh also need specially the government to invest in technology which should complement private sectors.

But dont worry Bangladesh economy is built on hard work of its people and we are looking for sustained growth instead of inflated artificial growth.

 

[Mage]

I'll go against the popular opinion and say they we haven't done well enough. We should've done much much better.

Now coming to the things held/holding us back,

Firstly, it is corruption. We used to be the world champion in corruption. Quite a feat, isn't it? Well thankfully we no longer hold the title of champions but corruption is still a very big problem. The thing with BD is corruption has become a way of life/ a norm. It is accepted among general public that you have to bribe officials to get things done at times. My uncle is a retd govt official and he had to bribe officials to get his pension after retirement. Everyone has to. And it is the norm. Sometimes ago the salary of govt officials were too low that they had to take bribe to live in a dignified way. Now their salary structure has been improved significantly but it still remains low. And Those who are used to live on bribes can't simply get out of this habit. But hopefully their salary structure will further improve and the ones joining govt services now won't have to take bribes to survive. But when the system is corrupt to the core, I'm not sure how much improvement is possible.


Then I'd blame our low power generation ability. This hampered foreign companies to invest in Bangladesh as well as it didn't allow factories inside the country to run well.

Then here comes illiteracy and lack of skilled labour. We have a lot of people but they do not have enough skill. Only good for manual labour. Illiteracy rate is dropping. But still we really lack skilled workers. We need better education system as well as more training facilities in our country. Govt is heavily investing in IT sector and outsourcing in BD has improved greatly. Govt expects to get 5bn exports in IT sector. Let's wait some more yeras to see where we stand in that matter. But we need to improve our quality of education to stop massive brain drain. And need to have more training facilities for the people so they can develop some sort of skills.


Lastly coming to the main point, political instability. Bangladesh became an independent nation in 1971, without money and without infrastructures. Our budget back then depended on foreign aid that we received. Mujib came to power after the liberation war. It's hard to judge him as a president but a lot of his policies were unpopular. And in 1975 he was murdered. Then Gen Zia came to power. He was murdered in 1981. Then another military leader came to power. He stayed for 10 years.(He is still alive and dreams of coming to power again.) But even his term was hardly stable. Anti govt protests was a common thing during his time. Blockades and hartals kept hurting economic growth. And lack of stability kept foreign investments away. And finally power shifted by election in 1991.

Things improved slightly after that. But there were still many issues. No party accepted losing an electioin and claimed voter fraud. Protests and hartals were omnipresent. Btw in Bangladesh peaceful protests are not regarded as protests. Unless you do something violent like burning a car or cause problems with the police, you are not protesting at all. So, things went on like this for many years. In 2014 Hasina started taking the hardline against them. And since the mid 2015 Bangladesh has been relatively stable.And growth since then has been better. Also here I should mention that the parties which stayed in power since 1991 had opposite policies. So many long term projects could be completed.



So these are the major things in my opinion which stopped Bangladesh from being an Asian success story. I maybe optimistic but still believe Bangladesh can be a success story if things are done right.

Our power generation capacity has increased and continuing to increase. Literacy rate is rising. Bangladesh Bank which started with 10$ donation from the finance minister in 1972, now has a foreign reserve of 30bn+. Imports have been stagnant and exports are rising. Politically the country now is more stable than it has ever been. Govt trying to diversify the economy to lessen the burden on RMG's, so far there haven't been much progress but it's a new initiative and govt trying to make leather, IT and pharmaceutical sectors stronger. Off course a lot of infrastructures are being built and hopefully we will be in a better condition in the future.

 

[TopCat]

IMHO, BD is progressing fairly, but the rate could've been higher had there been no radicalism, a substantial portion of their government's time and resources are spent quelling Islamic extremism which could otherwise be used for developmental purposes.....
Even though BD doesn't have a war going on, a portion of their population is still pro-Pakistan and try to follow their ideology of enmity based on religion instead of trade and commerce, even though their number is small, their misdeeds in the form of killing fellow countrymen, destroying property, disrupting normal activity affects BD as it is a small country as well......this is the only hurdle I see in the path of BD's development....

Why are you bringing radicalization in every discussion. You people are obsessed with it. Why India is still a 3rd world country with per capita one of the lowest in the world. Why Nepal, Myanmar still at the bottom in the table? Muslim,ruled 1/2 of the world for 1000 years dude.

 

[Nabil365]

Corruption is preventing us from leaping forward.
A better education for the younger and older generations will work as a catalyst for the economy of Bangladesh.

 

[Russell]

The corruption stuff is overplayed. Just think of how many international entities have been fined over the years for handing out bribes the world over...countless.

Companies and investors know you have to grease the wheel in the 3rd world. Our biggest problems was a lack of stability.

Think of the agitations in 95/96...we had a smooth handover in 2001...but, then again look at 2006...then 2 years of army backed govt.

Who can forget the jaamati inspired violence to try to save the dogs who rightly got hung. And then months of blockades...all through 2013.

Last 3 years things have been stable again.

Hard to progress, if the political parties decide to burn the country down every 4-5 years and it's even harder to get big time investment (without which, there is no expensive infrastructure development).

IMHO, BD is progressing fairly, but the rate could've been higher had there been no radicalism, a substantial portion of their government's time and resources are spent quelling Islamic extremism which could otherwise be used for developmental purposes.....
Even though BD doesn't have a war going on, a portion of their population is still pro-Pakistan and try to follow their ideology of enmity based on religion instead of trade and commerce, even though their number is small, their misdeeds in the form of killing fellow countrymen, destroying property, disrupting normal activity affects BD as it is a small country as well......this is the only hurdle I see in the path of BD's development....

The evil mullahs have always been there and they are trying to flex their muscles, but outright militancy in Bangladesh is still insignificant compared to just about any other nation of similar stature.

Radicalization might be a problem going forward - as it is the world over, but to date it is a non issue in terms of 'holding the country back'