Post Covid recovery of economy

It is fervently hoped by all that the scourge of Covid-19 will soon come to an end and normalcy will return to our national and personal life once again. The traditional economic activities will resume with factories working two shifts a day, farmers tilling their land for new crops and city shops attending customers till late at night. This is the kind of picture we want to see across the country once we have said adios to the deadly virus.     

There is no denying that the ongoing pandemic has hit hard our economy, which was getting robust day by day in the pre-Covid days. We were loaded with RMG orders worth billions of dollars from renowned brands of the world. Manufacturers were looking forward to orders worth 50billion dollars in the near future. But, unfortunately, some orders have been diverted to other countries as Covid situation worsened in Bangladesh since the middle of 2020.

With the expansion of our export basket, earnings from other traditional and non-traditional products were increasing steadily. The remittance sent by expatriate Bangladeshis was showing a healthy growth. We were also earning millions from foreign tourists which also registered an upward trend.

But during the last two years, most of these sectors took heavy blows and are trying to survive with bare minimum. The economy has to bounce back and in this regard the government will have to give relevant policy support. A number of pragmatic steps will need to be taken to ensure smooth running of macro and micro industries. The first and foremost step on the part of the government would be to complete construction of all infrastructures in the 100 economic zones in the country. Once complete, business community would go all out to invite possible foreign investors from the developed economies. Our foreign missions can organize seminar, symposium and trade shows in cooperation with the chambers of commerce and other trade bodies of the host countries. The economic zones need to be made operational to accommodate large and export-oriented industries. These would not only generate revenue, but will also provide employment opportunity for millions.

It needs to be said that many entrepreneurs have lost big chunks from their capital so they would need necessary finance for starting their businesses and run them like the days before. The small and medium scale manufacturers have suffered fund crunch and loss of business in the last two years hence they would require full support of the financial institutes as well.

The agriculture sector should be given full attention by the government as it still remains one of the largest sectors of economic activity. It has been seen in the past that if given proper support, farmers can do wonders for the country. They will need better quality seeds, fertilisers, water for irrigation and bank loan at lower rates.

Next, we have to tap the potential of the tourism sector. There is immense scope for growth of tourism in the country and with the development of the roads, bridges and highways across the country we feel the sector will get a big boost once things become normal. The idea of river and ocean tourism in Bangladesh should also be made popular by the tour operators.

It is good news that the government has taken some reform programmes to improve its position in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index. According to a World Bank annual rating, Bangladesh rose to the rank of 168th among 190 economies in the global ease of doing business index in 2020. This was 176th in 2019.

With full support from the government and the financial institutes the highly enterprising private sector will be able to make the economy vibrant once again sooner than we may expect.