A Tale of Two Economies: Comparing Bangladesh & Pakistan 1971-Present

[veekysingh]

With climate change these economic projections mean little.

world is not gonna last very next day my friend.

 

[veekysingh]

With climate change these economic projections mean little.

world is not gonna last very next day my friend.

 

[Abdal Ali]

With climate change these economic projections mean little.

The IMF projections are only for the next 5 years (2012-17). Climate change is a longer-term phenomenon.

However, you are correct that really long-term predictions are difficult to make because of "Climate Change". This is why most people would take the following very long-term predictions from the International Futures Institute with a grain of salt:

SOURCE: International Futures - Pardee Center

 

[eastwatch]

If i am not wrong than Pakistan started the LPG (Liberalization, Privatization & Globalization) policy 3 years before India in 1988, on the one hand Indian economy has been growing around average of 6% since than, Pakistan on the other is finding hard to even maintain a growth rate of 3-4%. People in Pakistan & it's govt. needs to understand that nations first build there economy & than go for building there military, like China did, like US did or for that matter like India did. Here we have a situation where Pakistan is spending a shocking 4-5% of it's GDP to add military muscle when it does not have the economy to support it.

Members from Pakistan here often raise questions on India's high military expenditure, but they often forget that howsoever high it may be ($ 40 billion compared to $ 7 billion of Pak) it is still just 2% of our GDP (even world average is around 2.5%). This is where Bangladesh have a definitive edge over Pakistan, though it's economy is half of Pakistan ($ 110 billion to Pakistan's $220 billion) in nominal terms but with growth rate of around 7% to Pakistan's 3-4%, it can easily surpass the Pakistan's economy in around a decade or so if things remains as it is in Pakistan.

Those who think that Pakistan cannot be compared to Bangladesh can take it this way that Pakistan had a 25 years advantage over Bangladesh (IMHO Bangladesh started true nation building effort only after 1971) & still Bangladesh's economy is half of Pakistan & growing at around solid 7%.

Please note that the GDP of Bangladesh was about $133 billion in the last fiscal that ended in June this year. With the projection of a 6.5% growth it will be more than $140 in the current fiscal.

 

[proud_indian]

great prospects for bangladesh

congrats

 

[Shardul.....the lion]

Bangladesh and Sri lanka are good GDP growth rates and HDI better than other SAARC countries.

 

[Contrarian]

Indeed there is something we can learn from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in many social sectors.

 

[Banglar Lathial]

Props to the thread starter for an "extensive analysis" comparing the prospects for the two economies. To be fair, none of the South Asian countries have actually made any progress in economy, education, life expectancy, scientific research that can be compared with the rapid progresses of East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China, for example.

 

[Abdal Ali]

Props to the thread starter for an "extensive analysis" comparing the prospects for the two economies. To be fair, none of the South Asian countries have actually made any progress in economy, education, life expectancy, scientific research that can be compared with the rapid progresses of East Asian countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan or China, for example.

Good points.

(A) Even though I am not personally convinced of its complete truth, there seems to be some evidence that the East Asian countries you mention have higher intelligence (statistically) then the South Asian countries we are discussing in this thread. Could this be an explanation for the under-performance of Pakistan & Bangladesh vis-a-vis the East Asian countries you name? I don't know... What do you think?

IQ and the Wealth of Nations

(B) Even so, regardless of whether (A) is true or not, the key question still remains: Why is Pakistan under-performing Bangladesh so clearly? After all, there is no theory that I have encountered which suggests that Pakistanis are less intelligent than Bangladeshis. So what is causing this relative under-performance? This is the subject of this thread. Do you have anything to add in this context?

 

[Icewolf]

Your are back, with so many different accounts.

 

[Icewolf]

zItd take about 2 decades for BD to overtake Pakistan and if you think Pakistan is gonna grow 2% after 2013... ur wrong

 

[Abdal Ali]

zItd take about 2 decades for BD to overtake Pakistan and if you think Pakistan is gonna grow 2% after 2013... ur wrong

So you do think that Bangladesh will overtake us, but you feel it will take about 2 decades for them to do this.

I have a heard a number of people voice an opinion similar to yours, i.e. that Pakistan will soon grow faster than 3% and rapidly reach 8-9-10% growth rates.

Perhaps this will prove to be true. No one can see the future.

However, the issue in this thread is causation. Specifically, what do you think will cause Pakistan to move into high-gear in the near future? Where will this growth come from? What will drive it? Or, to put it another way, what do you think Pakistan's problem is right now? What is holding us back at present? Why we growing so slowly at this moment? What is stopping us from achieving 8-9% growth in 2012-13?

Is it the Americans? WOT? Zardari? Supreme Court? Altaf Hussein? Kiyani? Zionist Press? ANP goondas? PPP? What?

In addition, in your opinion, what is (or are) the cause(s) of the long-term and consistent under-performance of our economy vis-a-vis Bangladesh's economy over the last 20-30 years (as seen in the original post)?

 

[Abdal Ali]

SOURCE: World Economic Outlook Database April 2012

The 1st & 2nd graphs below are the data from IMF for Growth-rates of Per Capita GDP (PPP) for Bangladesh and our country. Clearly, there is a steady downward trend for our country and a consistent upward trend for Bangladesh over the last 30 years.

The 3rd graph shows the ratios of the two Growth-rates. It is obvious that we actually did better than Bangladesh in the 1980s, especially in the earlier part. Starting from the early 1990s, however, the ratio curve starts to fall, implying a worse relative performance. And this seems to continue to the present time (20 years).

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QUESTION: What were the causes our unusual (i.e. Bangladesh did not experience it) 1980s boom? Was it driven by foreign aid (as most jealous Indians like to claim)? Was it driven by remittances? Given that FDI/FII investments were generally negligible in the pre-globalized 80s, was it driven purely by domestic (internal) savings? Or was discovery of oil or gas in Balochistan/Sindh or something like that?

 

[zip]

@abdal ali
i think bangladesh has momentum to drive its economy near to that of pakistan within a decade . For pakistan if everything goes right it takes time to build that momentum but if it is wot which is holding back then you can expect a faster growth as soon as war is over ... But all depends on people .. It seems your people dont think much about economy or they have no time to think about it as heaven seems to be greater attraction than earthly prosperity

 

[eastwatch]

I think if Imran Khan is elected things will dramatically change in Pakistan for the better for the most part so these long term
projections expect things to stay as is which isn't taking into account change in government's impact on economic performance.

PS the OP is a known false flag and has made multiple IDs

Why people should put faith on a cricketer turned politicians only because he is a renowned figure? My question is can he fix the economic growth issues? Only political jargons cannot fix the economic issues of the country. My question is can he

1) Reduce the number of military troops and the military budget?

2) Introduce a painful belt-tightening of the general mass that could be done only by importing less by deed of devaluation of Rupees?

3) Enrich the govt coffer by imroving the current unworthy taxation sytem?

4) Bring FDI into Pakistan?

5) Expand the export market of Pakistan?

There are many such things that must be fixed by any govt. But, instead of giving long-term efforts people in Pakistan may be waiting for a kind of miracle that will solve away all their economic woes that its bureaucrats, military establishment and politicians have combinedly created during the last 62 years. So, just the infusion of a good personality like Imran Khan may not suffice to bring back the economic health of Pakistan.