Bangladesh has deep uncertainty after LDC graduation: Speakers

Bangladesh has done an excellent job in socioeconomic development for the last 50 years and become an economic role model to the world though institutional capacity has not increased with these developments which may cause deep uncertainty after LDC graduation.

To get rid of this, focus should be on interplay between economics and politics. Also political goodwill, good governance, transparency and accountability are must.

Speakers said these at a book launching programme titled “Fifty Years of Bangladesh: Economy, Politics, Society and Culture” organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) at its Dhanmondi office on Thursday.

Rounaq Jahan, member of CPD board of trustees, and editor of the book moderated the ceremony.

The book presents new empirical data supplemented with critical analysis of processes, actors and actions that have been the drivers of Bangladesh's transformation.

Organised in six sections, the book provides a multi-disciplinary, holistic and interrelated narrative of the Bangladesh story.

Although there has been growth and progress in certain areas, there are still lingering institutional weaknesses that need to be addressed.

In this regard Selim Raihan, professor of economics department at the University of Dhaka and executive director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) said, “We have grown but institutional weaknesses remain. We have to work with a new set of drivers.

“We become unable to improve the state capacity. Major improvements have to be made in the banking sector, taxation, and judiciary and for that political support is required.”

At the launch, Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and former adviser to the caretaker government, said apart from the economic driving force, some other factors have played an influential role in the development of the country.

"That is, the revolution of human personality. It is the tendency in humans to survive or fight against the odds. Due to this trend, the people of the country are moving forward," he added.

Rizwanul Islam, a former special adviser on employment sector at the International Labour Office in Geneva, said no miracle happened behind the economic growth of Bangladesh.

Moreover, it was the labour that played the major role to achieve the GDP growth, he added.

With the help of high productive rice seed, he said, the agricultural sector played a big role in the high gross domestic product growth.

The revolution has taken place silently, he said, adding that industrial workers and remittances sent by migrant workers from abroad played the key role.

Professor Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the CPD; Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network of Economic Modelling and one of the writers of the book, Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow of the CPD, and Zahid Hussain, a former lead economist of the World Bank's Dhaka office, also talked at the event.