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Bangladesh has set an example for economic development across the world and achieved the fastest growth in South Asia, according to Prof Yasuyuki Sawada.
A robust demographic dividend, strong readymade garment (RMG) exports and stable macroeconomic conditions have supported rapid economic growth over the past two decades, he said on Monday.
The country needs to develop human capital by making real education and export diversification as well as accelerating technological progress to ensure sustainable economic growth, added the economics professor at the University of Tokyo.
Prof Sawada, also former chief economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), made the remarks while addressing a seminar, titled “Asia’s Journey to Prosperity: Policy, Market, and Technology over 50 Years,” organised by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) at its conference room in Dhaka. BIDS Director General Dr Binayak Sen chaired the event.
Bangladesh has shown rapid growth in the past several years, even during the Covid-19 pandemic, due to rising export earnings — especially in the RMG sector, Sawada said.
He said the country also has huge prospects in other sectors like pharmaceutical, leather and light engineering.
However, Asia has shown phenomenal economic growth over 50 years, which led to a rising global share and improvements in broad development indicators, he mentioned.
Asia has also improved in different development indicators including per capita income, extreme poverty rate, infant mortality and mean years of schooling (age 20-24), said Prof Sawada, currently a visiting fellow at the Asian Development Bank Institute.
In the last 50 years, Asian development policy shifted from state-led indoctrination to market-oriented growth, he said, adding that structural transformation also involves a shift from low- to high- productivity production within each sector through technological progress.
He also mentioned that high-growth Asian economies made large investments in physical capital, financed largely by domestic savings.
A key part of physical capital investment was for infrastructure, including transport, power, water and sanitation, and telecommunications, Sawada said, adding that during 1971-2018, per capita electricity generation increased by 35 times in Korea, 30 times in China, 19 times in Thailand, 14 times in Malaysia, and nine times in India — significantly narrowing the gaps with advanced countries.
