Before commenting on the economic future of Bangladesh, we must understand the current state it is in this moment. Now, Bangladesh is a developing economy with a good GDP growth of around 6% over the recent years. Known as a resilient economy, Bangladesh has done well against the global economic meltdown of 2008-2009 and the many natural calamities in recent years. Export earnings has been increasing in recent years with the export basket remaining largely undiversified with almost three quarters of the income being generated by Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector. Another source of revenue for Bangladesh is the expatriates who send billions of dollars back home each year.
Bangladesh economy is discernibly dependent on its huge and inexpensive labor force. Be it the RMG sector or the foreign remittance, Bangladesh is taking advantage of its population. However, this population is also the main cause of concern for the country as it remains poverty stricken and largely unskilled. Having one of the highest population density in the world, Bangladesh economy will always face the challenge of feeding such a large population.
More importantly, With this unskilled population, Bangladesh economy cannot diversify its earning source to any technology based business sector as those sectors will need highly skilled workforce which is almost certainly unachievable for Bangladesh in the next ten years. This being a fact we can safely assume that Bangladesh economy is going to be dependent on labor intensive industries at least for the next ten years. In other words, Bangladesh is going to ride on its unskilled and cheap labor.
With no other sector looking as potent as RMG sector, it is probably fair to assume that Bangladesh will be dependent on RMG industry for the next decade. With a superficial look, this seems to be a very fine avenue to continue. RMG has not lost its market during global recession (primarily because Bangladesh can make inexpensive products) and it is growing robustly even after the post recession era. Around 4 million people are now employed in this industry (Islam, 2007) and that helps the country to tackle its problem of unemployment. With unemployment and underemployment sharing 40% of the labor force (Banglapedia, 2010) between them, RMG is indeed a savior for Bangladesh. Moreover, countries like China are in a disadvantageous position to compete with Bangladesh as their labor cost is shooting up.
But there is one question which is unattended. Is Bangladesh’s RMG fed growth giving birth to development? Or is it creating ‘growth without development’?
Before attending this question we must understand what growth without development is and how it can paralyze an economy. Growth and development are two different economic phenomena. Growth refers to the simple increase in per capita income of a country. It has no relevance to the much desired economic equality. For example, economic growth has taken place in Gabon, a west central African country, who has a GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) of 14400 USD (CIA, 2011). The sharp rise of GDP was seen after the country discovered large stocks of oil in the 1970s. But the richest 20% of the population consume 90% of the wealth and a third of the population lives in poverty. And that is where we see no economic development. Economic development is a much broader concept than growth where the structural change and distributive pattern are important concepts. Perhaps a more vivid example of growth without development is our neighboring country India. With almost double digit growth taking place in recent years, India seems to be the new economic powerhouse of the world. But has the fate of the common people changed in India? Statistics would shout out in denial. For example, in Uttar Prodesh the infant mortality rate is 73 per 1000 live births where as it is 41 in Bangladesh, thought to be a largely underdeveloped country (Kiron karnick, 2006). Even in highly ‘developed’ Delhi, the infant mortality rate is 40. Same picture can be seen in the education system in rural India.
Obviously Bangladesh’s RMG sector has given employment to many and earned a massive amount of foreign currency but has it been able to change the fate of its workers? The answer is a big, bold no. Because we can see that even though our RMG sector is blooming large, the workers of the industry are still poor and no change has taken place there. Even the much awaited minimum wage has only nominal impact. Jyoti Rahman, an applied macroeconomist, has calculated Consumer Price Index for garments workers using a basket of rice, lentil, soya bean oil and salt. 1 kilo rice, 250 gram lentil, 40 ml soya bean oil and 10mg salt can make a plate of meal. With the minimum wage of November 2006 (which was 1662 taka) a person could buy 43 such plates while with 2010’s minimum wage (which is 3000 taka) a person can buy 51 such plates. (rahman, 2010) So the increase is only by one sixth of the previous earnings.
But have not we heard that RMG industry has shown unprecedented and even unexpected growth at this time? If that is so then who are actually reaping the benefits? Is not it a fact then that the wealth is getting accumulated within the hands of the owners? Only employing people is not the indication of development. Bringing a change in the living standards of masses is.
The reason why I analyzed the current state of the economy is that economic policymakers seem to be quite happy with the direction the economy is heading and if there is no major change from the current state then after 10 years we will be a high growth, low developed nation still depending on its poor labors.
So let us see where are we making the mistakes. The first mistake is that we are depending too much on our cheap labor. If we remain to be the sweatshops of developed countries then we will continue to be sweatshops. Cheap labor cannot be the cornerstone of an economy as then it will always need people to be poor for the economy to run.
It is high time that we shift our focus from cheap labor. What we need to do is first develop a web of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as that can ensure an equitable distribution of income. Large corporations can only accumulate capital to the owners and top level administration. SMEs, on the other hand, can disperse wealth and bring socio-economic stability. SMEs are not converged on one or two mega cities. Rather it is usually dispersed all through the region. And thus the development of SME sector leads to the development of the entire country. For SMEs to develop, we must use our banking system. It is a positive sign that the central bank these days are focusing on financing SMEs more than ever. If this effort becomes a success then our economy may get a new path of development in the next ten years. We must also use our expatriates. As we know that our expatriates do have significant amount of money to invest but the unfavorable investment climate hinders them from investing. We do need foreign investment in the industrial sector to increase the contribution of industrial sector to GDP (industrial sector contributed only 29.77% of 2006-07’s GDP). With a overly chubby service sector (49% of GDP in 2006-07), we need to have industrial sector expanding and the best way for it is to use foreign currency with having our citizens in charge which is only possible if the expatriates start to invest.
The education system must improve as well. A country cannot become truly developed without education. If we look to China we will see that so far their growth has done little to create development but now they are focusing on education which may get them very good results in the coming decades. To create a diversified economy, we will need technically skilled university graduates in different fields.
The future of Bangladesh economy depends on another very important contributor, agriculture. Even though agriculture’s contribution is only 21% in GDP, most Bangladeshis earn their living from this field. Moreover, as we know, the availability of food grains is very important for socio-economic stability and that comes from agriculture.
The economic future of Bangladesh in the next ten years seems to be more or less set. With our cheap labor based sector(s) doing well, we can expect a growth of 6% or even 8% if we can ensure the supply of energy to the industries. But we must understand that cheap labor based economy will not be able to develop the region as it only converges wealth and does not disperse it. We must give increased focus to building an SME based economy with a good education system. Then the wealth will be dispersed and then and only then we may expect of a properly developed economy.


April 4th, 2012
admin