Walton pride of Bangladesh now going global: Newsweek

Walton is the corporate pride of Bangladesh. The electronics juggernaut is setting a new standard for manufacturing. It is already revolutionized consumption in Bangladesh and now going global.

Renowned US weekly magazine Newsweek, in a recent report has highlighted Bangladesh’s incredible economic development of last twelve years, strong leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, stable capital market and the contribution of Walton in country’s industrial development.

The report says that Bangladesh’s GDP was $102.37 billion in 2009 which has increased to $416.26 billion in 2021. From 2010 to 2020, Bangladesh achieved the world’s highest cumulative GDP growth.

In a decade and a half, it lifted more than 25 million people out of poverty. Last year, the UN confirmed that Bangladesh would graduate from the least developed countries category by 2026, making it just one of a handful of countries to do so. According to government plans, the country is on track to become a developed nation by 2041.

Since becoming independent in 1971, Bangladesh has steadily progressed from the second-poorest country in the world to being proclaimed “a model for poverty reduction” by the World Bank, all while remaining democratic and committed to protecting human rights and the environment. Stable democracy, infrastructural development, attracting more domestic and foreign investment, export earnings all these factors were the keys to maintain the growth even in the pandemic. According to World Bank, the GDP per capita of Bangladesh in 2021 was $2,503 while it was $2,277 in India. Besides being home to the world’s second-largest readymade garment sector, the country’s leather, jute, IT services, pharmaceutical, agriculture and high-tech export sectors are all on the rise. The Asian Development Bank forecasts GDP growth of 6.9% in 2022 and 7.1 per cent in 2023.

Sheikh Hasina and her nation have defied the odds. Under her strong leadership, Bangladesh solidified itself as a stable democracy while drastically improving its citizens’ quality of life. Amid global turmoil, Bangladesh’s capital markets have been marked by stability and optimism. Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) Chairman Prof Shibli Rubayat-Ul-Islam also featured in the Newsweek issue.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her interview with the magazine, said that innovation and entrepreneurship were at the heart of her development vision.

In the same issue, Newsweek says that Walton’s spectacular growth runs parallel to that of its country of origin. Before the company began manufacturing its first refrigerators in 2008, the appliances were essentially luxury products in Bangladesh. Fast forward to today, and fridges have become commonplace in the homes of the increasingly prosperous local population, with the market growing ten fold in the last 10 years. The company, the first Bangladeshi manufacturer of mobile phones, compressors, air conditioners, televisions, laptops and elevators, has likewise helped those products take similar journeys in the domestic market.