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Bangladesh Economic & Infrastructure Development - Updates & Discussions

The article says that it's not necessary to worry about trade deficit as it will encourage FDI....which is unlikely in BD's case.

We can't hope for more of the same for long either. RMG is not gonna make BD developed country. And other industries are not appearing. And we will need FDI at least initially for other industries to flourish. Economic reforms are necessary that will encourage investments here. But what is being dine here? Ease of doing business rating worse than Afghanistan. Inept bureaucracy is harming BD more than anything. But Biman guys will say otherwise.

Article is wrong implying it will be FDI (quality capital investment)....the capital account Taka surplus pressure (generated outside BD from the current account deficit) is largely going to be in form of BD govt bonds (given BD has long way to go in stock market development and private industry bonds etc) which finances its internal fiscal deficit (quality of all that depends on quality of BD govt)....a rough gauge of this process's quality overall is the credit rating BD has (which is still below investment grade). If BD improves its credit rating to investment grade, that will go long way in enhancing the quality of this route.

Thus BD certainly needs to worry about trade deficit (given its bad credit rating and bad corruption rankings - even for the region) given its current status quo and over reliance on its govt feelz figures (and reluctance to improve and reform, and join SDDS category over time for example).

On the other hand gross capital formation is looking fine in BD in the raw levels and trends, though the quality break-up is probably not great (there is not much data on that in first place) and bump from low base effect plays its part in exaggerating it.

Its a mixed bag leaning to bad, when BD really needs a solid, clear goodie bag in these fundamentals (given they have massive follow on inertia and relevance long term). Go along to get along status quo is not going to cut it for BD long term....but how can BD introduce genuine healthy economic and political competition at current point to better hedge for it?

@Marine Rouge @bluesky
 
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Good that you quickly found out what a butt-hurt retard that poster is. His whole forum time is spent bad-mouthing BD.

He reads a lot and and thinks that anyone remotely intelligent will believe his copy-paste nonsense. Notice all the people he calls are not really that intelligent and/or are butt-hurt at BD for one reason or another. No-one remotely intelligent has any time for him.
And unlike you he actually backs up his arguments with actual relevant data and numbers!!!
 
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one person has a 2.5 trillion dollar business and is growing at 5% per annum
one person has a 250 billion and is growing at 7%
when are they going to become equal?
in which century?

(10x)*1.05^y = x*1.07^y

basically y* log (1.07/1.05) = log 10

y = log 10/ log (1.07/1.05) = 122 (years)
The way @doorstar asked the question and the answer @Nilgiri gave both are superficial. Who on Earth thinks BD total economy will ever match the total economy of India? So, I re-write the question @doorstar put forward as:
-One country has $1,850 (correct?) per capita GDP and growing at 5%
-Another country has $1,650 (correct?) per capita GDP and growing at 7%

Now, @Nilgiri, please use the logarithm to calculate how many short years the latter will take to catch up with the former, and how many long years the latter will take to double the per capita GDP figure comparing to the former? It is certainly not 122 years. How about something like 10 years or less for catching up?
 
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Who on Earth thinks BD total economy will ever match the total economy of India?

Hence why I put this:

Of course per capita also has to be figured in (given different population sizes)...but that is a easy thing to do (just change the ratio of current sizes to reflect that).

I was just giving direct answer to the direct initial question.

One country has $1,850 (correct?) per capita GDP and growing at 5%
-Another country has $1,650 (correct?) per capita GDP and growing at 7%

These numbers are wrong and are comparing two countries with different IMF categories of data collection and standardisation (India is SDDS, BD is GDDS).

Anyway just so you have an answer for this very limited/non-useful comparison:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=BD-IN

India = 1940 USD per capita (growing at 13% from 2016 - 2017).

BD = 1516 USD per capita (growing at 11.6% from 2016 to 2017)

So Bangladesh will clearly never catch up with this analysis (India 28% higher and growing at faster rate)

If we look at constant dollar (i.e account for inflation)...a somewhat better comparison:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?locations=IN-BD

India = 1963 USD per capita (growing at 5.4%)

BD = 1093 USD per capita (growing at 6.2%) <----you can see just how inflation in BD has wrecked havoc on the constant dollar level (compared to India where numbers are roughly the same)

Using the earlier formula, that will be catch up time of 77 years (when both countries GDP per capita will be 110,000 USD). As you can see there is a problem using this analysis for such a long time...as neither these growth rates will hold up for either country in this time frame.

In fact you can already see how the growth rate effect in India is decelerating as its base is no longer so small like Bangladesh. When India was at 1100 USD per capita, it too was growing more or less at same rate as BD is now (though India has much better standards/accuracy/credibility).

If we look at PPP constant dollars (the best, most relevant comparison possible - as there is direct sampling of consumption trends on the ground rather than using only USD demand/supply with trade composition that is very different to local consumption - i.e do Bangladeshis consume 90% RMG in their daily basket?):

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locations=IN-BD

India = 6426 USD per capita (growing at 5.4%)

BD = 3523 USD per capita (growing at 6.1%)

i.e 91 year catch up time period (and again same time frame problem as before).

BD needs another 10 - 20 years to chart out actual industrialisation, and better standards (SDDS) adoption and better (investment grade) credit rating and much better run govt and bureaucracy etc etc etc to really start comparing adequately and relevantly with India.
 
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If we buy more things made by foreigners, then foreigners must be investing capital in our country, that’s just how it works. Any deficit upon the trade or current accounts is and must be offset by an equal and opposite surplus on the capital account for the balance of payments does always balance.

Note what happens if foreigners are investing in Bangladesh. There’s more capital in the country, and it is capital which increases the productivity of the workers. More productive workers get paid more, that’s just the way the world works.

Thus, our running a trade deficit, as a result of that more capital coming in, is what contributes to wages rising over time. Yes, it’s an oddity, but there’s a truth there all the same.
Reading the excerpts above I really do not understand what the writer wants to say. Adam Smith theory may be more applicable to the western countries than it is to a country like Bangladesh where the FDI Gurus do not find a lucrative market.

Today, the trade deficit is financed and balanced only because of our expatriates remitting $15 billion every year. The more deficit the more BD becomes dependent upon China, ADB and WB money to finance many facelifting projects. And when it is their money they choose companies to do the related planning, designing and construction jobs.

Participation by BD contractors can only be seen at the lower rung. It means no absorption of technology by the locals from the foreigners. This is the vicious cycle BD is in. In case of a surplus trade, the situation will reverse, and the GoB will decide the local companies and they will select foreign consulting firms if they need them. This is what is happening in countries like Malaysia. It finances its projects.

Yes, it can be reversed if FDI comes in. But it is not happening now. The infusion is probably less than $2 billion per year. This is an amount that can create merely $500 million worth of wealth per year.
 
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Adam Smith theory may be more applicable to the western countries than it is to a country like Bangladesh where the FDI Gurus do not find a lucrative market.

Adam Smith theory is very applicable to anyone (both poor and rich countries, but probably even more for poor countries given their suffering populations that need more free markets to gain wealth to improve their condition)....because it itself says that there needs to be a genuine moral based rule of law system to be in play for what we call capitalism today to work and work well. Without it, anything that arises cannot be called Capitalism but a frankenstein monster (of conflicting immoral authoritarian interests).

Everyone seems to think Adam Smith only wrote "Wealth of Nations"....when in fact his preceding work "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" is his even more important work and forms the context for the enlightenment that is true capitalism.

Rest of your post I agree with largely.

@Joe Shearer
 
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China top FDI source in FY '18
Bilateral trade gap exceeds $11b, exports decline 27pc
Asjadul Kibria | Published: November 18, 2018 09:44:00 | Updated: November 18, 2018 13:25:46

1542525946.jpg


China became the top source of foreign direct investment (FDI) for Bangladesh last fiscal year (FY), the central bank said.

The net inflow of FDI from the world's second-largest economy reached US$ 506.13 million in fiscal year 2017-18.

The amount was around one-fifth of the total foreign capital flow into Bangladesh during the FY 2017-18.

Bangladesh received net FDI worth $ 2,580.44 million in the past fiscal year, posting a growth of 5.12 per cent over the previous fiscal year.

A large chunk of the Chinese FDI came to the power sector, which received a record $ 407.31 million in the last quarter of the last fiscal year.

This means the Chinese FDI in Bangladesh was six times the figure received during FY17 when the net flow amounted to $ 68.58 million.

The stock of Chinese FDI also stood at $ 1,193.22 million by the end of FY18 while the gross inflow was $ 534.58 million.

The net inflow is derived by deducting disinvestment from the gross investment.

Chinese FDI in South Asia has been increasing at a faster rate in recent times.

"China Global Investment Tracker," compiled by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, showed that China either invested or is ready to invest $ 10.64 billion combined in five countries of the region from January 2016 through June 2018. These are: Pakistan ($ 2.59 billion) Sri Lanka ($ 2.55 billion), Myanmar ($ 2.10 billion), Bangladesh ($2.06 billion) and Nepal ($1.34 billion).

Bangladesh Bank statistics, however, doesn't support the data unveiled thorough the China investment tracker, which is considered the only comprehensive data set covering China's global investment and construction activities.

Bangladesh Bank actually estimates gross as well net inflow while the global investment tracker covers both proposed and actual investment.

The United Kingdom became the second-largest source of FDI with $ 372.72 million during the past fiscal year, followed by Hong Kong ($ 190.73 million), the United States of America ($ 170.57 million), and Singapore ($ 158.48 million).

In FY18, the net FDI from India to Bangladesh stood at $ 125.28 million, registering a 31.30 per cent growth over the previous year.

Meanwhile another set of statistics, released by Bangladesh Bank last week, showed that annual import from China jumped by 14 per cent in FY 18 and stood at $ 1,1706 million ($11.70 billion).

The big jump in import from China compared with a sharp decline in export left bilateral trade deficit to record $11.01 billion in FY'18.

This is for the first time Bangladesh's trade gap with any trading partner crossed the $10 billion level.

Exports to China declined to $694.96 million in FY18 from $949.41 million, or nearly 27 per cent in FY '17.

Exports of Bangladeshi products to China last declined in FY'09 when it dropped to $ 97.06 million from $ 106.95 million in FY'08.

Since then export to China has increased annually until the past year when it declined again.

China is not only the largest import source of Bangladesh, but also the top trading partner of the country.

Bilateral trade with China stood at $ 12.40 billion during the last fiscal year.

https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/economy/bangladesh/china-top-fdi-source-in-fy-18-1542512640
 
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As I said numerous times, India will always try to impose some barrier on our connectivity with Nepal and Bhutan. BBIN has already went to the bin, we should formulate bilateral agreements with these countries to have a dedicated corridor without relying much on India.
 
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That's not actually true. The poor in India has been thrusted for years by politicians and corruption, which has made the country stagnate and fall back rapidly. India is no China. Light-years away from that and simply does not have the infrastructure to match what you and other Indians keep telling people. A little dose of reality is suitable for all parties. India has fallen well bellow it's target recently and has continued veer off into an anticlimax to what was projected by your officials a decade ago.

To quote an article on the perils of the Indian economy and how your government has fed its poor populations wild fantasies for years, here is one:

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India is in a silent, unreported crisis, a crisis of payments. There is no money to honour upcoming commitments. Later this week, for instance, Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) - a financing mechanism unique to India - have about Rs600 billion (approx $8.3 billion) of bonds due for redemption. They have no money; their back was broken by the demonetisation of high-denomination currency back on November 8, 2016. They are what the medium, small and micro enterprises (MSME) sector relies on for financing, particularly in areas like housing and transport. With public sector banks saddled with Rs10 trillion of bad loans (or non-performing assets, NPAs), there is little money available for launching or expanding business.

So Indian GDP growth is stuck at around seven per cent. This might be a lot in other countries - indeed, India's quarterly GDP numbers have beaten other large economies lately - but for India it is not enough for providing employment and eradicating poverty. A million Indians join the workforce every month. This requires double-digit growth. The last time India achieved double-digit growth was during the Manmohan Singh years - according to the figures revised, ironically, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government (to make his own economic management look good)."

Reference: https://www.khaleejtimes.com/editorials-columns/what-is-modi-/government-hiding-about-indias-economy



So you think calling on others to corroborate fake news is helping you or your country in any capacity. It has been known for years how India has been falling way short of expectations for years. The poor in the country are extremely poor.

To quote:

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A low poverty line results in diminished economic growth and flawed policies like demonetisation.

The development agenda today is largely about drawing an arbitrary line for poverty and focusing on a narrow goal of pulling individuals just above this line. Multilateral development organisations like the UN and the World Bank play an important role in setting the development agenda for poor and middle-income countries like India, but have not done enough to push for a realistic global poverty line.

The World Bank defines poverty as earning less than $1.90/day, after adjusting for purchasing power parity. The UN recently released its Multidimensional Poverty Index, which considers poverty to not just be a deprivation in income, but also in other indicators of well-being.

The international poverty line, however, remains the most intuitive and widespread tool used to measure poverty.

Also read: UNDP data on poverty shows gains are in line with Modi’s slogan, not a product of it

But many economists have found that there is no discontinuity (or sharp non-linearity) around the poverty line in any objective/subjective indicator of well-being. In other words, there exists no line of poverty.

If development agencies insist on having a line for use as proxies for poverty measurement like the head count ratio (HCR), then it should be at a much higher level to enable us to assert with 100 per cent confidence that people above this line are NOT poor. Not only is the current poverty line too low, leading to far too many people being excluded from the development agenda, but this low line is also nudging governments and international development agencies to focus exclusively on programmatic and targeted approaches to poverty reduction.

There are approximately one billion people (call them ‘extremely poor’) below the $1.90 line and 1 billion (call them ‘prosperous’) above the $15 line (set by OECD/rich countries). That leaves 5 billion people who are poor by a reasonable global standard of poverty, but not poor according to the $1.90/day definition. This is a dangerously low-bar definition of poverty – no one in the history of mankind has celebrated crossing the $1.90 threshold (thank you Lant Pritchett for that great metaphor).

A focus on reducing $1.90/day poverty excludes the legitimate concerns and needs of 5 billion people from the development agenda. In Indonesia, for example, the headcount $1.90/day poverty was only 10.6 per cent in 2016 – which means, 9 in 10 Indonesians weren’t included in the international “end extreme poverty” agenda even when many of them experienced unacceptable deprivation in human well-being.

Also read: Poverty or inequality- What is more important for India and Indian economists

Similarly, according to the $1.90/day definition, only 4.7 per cent of Indians are extremely poor, but a democratic government cannot base its development agenda by excluding 95 per cent of the country’s population. Hence, an Indian government has very little incentive to form an agenda specifically for the poor. This becomes a relevant point with 2019 general elections just around the corner in India. Political parties cannot win an election with agendas that exclude most citizens.

The $1.90 line is surely not an adequate measure of global poverty – analysts have suggested that $7.40/day is the minimum necessary to achieve decent nutrition and life expectancy. Therefore, agencies like the World Bank should have a higher global poverty line ranging between a lower bound of $7.40 and an upper bound of $15 (poverty line set by rich countries). That would enable us to say for sure who is poor and who is not. A broader agenda is necessary to focus on raising 6 billion people into prosperity as opposed to an exclusionary goal that makes gains only for 1 in 7 people on the planet.

In the Indian example, when the poverty line is broadened, obviously a larger proportion of the population gets included in it – something like 95 per cent of the Indian population. And the only way to reduce poverty for 95 per cent of the population is through market-led processes – i.e., economic growth. So, in a sense, the low bar poverty line constraints development thinkers and practitioners to implement redistributive models of development, which are more likely to be zero-sum games. Broadening the poverty line would allow and force us to look at a positive sum model of economic growth where everyone benefits. After all, most of the reduction of poverty in the world has indeed come from sustained episodes of economic growth, and increased labour mobility.

Also read: RBI data isn’t enough to argue if demonetisation was a success or failure

According to a study by Pritchett, et al. (2016), the growth accelerations in India in 1993 and 2002 led to a total gain of $3.7 trillion – a gain that wouldn’t have existed had there been no acceleration in economic growth. This phenomenal achievement was possible because of the shift towards more market-oriented policies at the general level, which led to a period of sustained economic growth. A corollary of the understanding that economic growth is the best way to reduce poverty would be that any policy that holds back or diminishes growth without any long-term benefits is criminal and should not be undertaken. An apt example of such a policy in the Indian context is demonetisation, which economists suggest led to a decrease in India’s growth rate with no significant benefits on its stated objectives.

Policymakers and citizens need to understand and appreciate the supreme importance of economic growth. Having a realistically higher poverty line will be an important step towards that goal.

Yash Mehta is working in the field of development research and is a Fellow at Citizens for Public Leadership (CPL). Aditya Jahagirdar is a development and public policy professional.

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If you think calling on your forum buddies to back up your wild, nut-job conspiracies is going to help your country in any way, you've got another thing coming, buddy. Stick to realistic goals and real aspirations. You're overestimating India's capabilities. If this is the mentality of your countrymen, is it any wonder why India's growth is decreasing? I'm pretty befuddled why you think spreading such false claims is going to help you.
We are the fastest growing major economy in the world. That's a big deal. Your first paragraph is just conjecture. There are plenty of stats which will give you the numbers on an ever expanding middle class in India.

Now, of course China is doing better. Doesn't mean we are not progressing. 7-8 percent growth will still make us an upper middle income economy in around 2 decades. We liberalised our economy quite late. So it will take time to catch up with other upper middle income countries.

We will take the capitalist route for poverty alleviation, because unrestricted socialism and providing freebies to poor people hasn't really helped us.

You can take the moral high ground when your per capita income reaches first world levels. Right now, your either close or way behind us (depending upon the source of statistics).

Think of it this way - no BD poster hardly ever posts in their sections but they swarm here like locusts.

The more intelligent ones know that India is destined for disintegration as it is not natural and BD is their greatest fear as it shows why single-ethnic states have always dominated and lasted throughout history.
This is funny. You should look at the migration rates between India and Bangladesh.
 
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Until about a certain age I too would have backed Islamic economic system/ Islamic banking but now that I know that this is just a sham (in the present world), I can’t back them.

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because there is no authentic Islamic System in the World operational for the last 350 years to begin, thats inorder to analyse it and it being able to produce results.
 
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GOB is fairly useless, lacks vision and have low implementation capacity.

Trust the private sector and NGOs to pick up the slack.

One Hope's with raising literacy our people will raise themselves up by the boot strap incrementally as has happened since independence.

We require visionary leadership.... I see none on the horizon but have great hope for BDs people. Population has been controlled and economy is in lift off mode...fingers crossed.
For foreign private investment it needs to go through official procedure set by BD bureaucracy. Which is very much a turn off for the foreign investments. So they prefer other destinations like Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand. Growing trade deficit is indeed a concern. And govt has to look into it. Impose much higher tax on expensive items from China and India. Raw materials should be allowed and the tarrifs must be cut for them. But much more tax and duty fee has to be dumped on expensive products. It might even encourage some more manufacturing in the country.

Article is wrong implying it will be FDI (quality capital investment)....the capital account Taka surplus pressure (generated outside BD from the current account deficit) is largely going to be in form of BD govt bonds (given BD has long way to go in stock market development and private industry bonds etc) which finances its internal fiscal deficit (quality of all that depends on quality of BD govt)....a rough gauge of this process's quality overall is the credit rating BD has (which is still below investment grade). If BD improves its credit rating to investment grade, that will go long way in enhancing the quality of this route.

Thus BD certainly needs to worry about trade deficit (given its bad credit rating and bad corruption rankings - even for the region) given its current status quo and over reliance on its govt feelz figures (and reluctance to improve and reform, and join SDDS category over time for example).

On the other hand gross capital formation is looking fine in BD in the raw levels and trends, though the quality break-up is probably not great (there is not much data on that in first place) and bump from low base effect plays its part in exaggerating it.

Its a mixed bag leaning to bad, when BD really needs a solid, clear goodie bag in these fundamentals (given they have massive follow on inertia and relevance long term). Go along to get along status quo is not going to cut it for BD long term....but how can BD introduce genuine healthy economic and political competition at current point to better hedge for it?

@Marine Rouge @bluesky
Govts are always easy in bureaucrats because they play an important role to keep the power. Govt change and you'll see many transfer of officials in the high level but the culture will remain the same. BD need a people oriented bureaucracy or a Govt which will be hard on the givt officials to deliver.
 
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I feel bittersweet about this new injections of monies coming in from China.
Bangladesh is good.

But I am very worried China investment in these countries: Turkey, Australia, North korea...

Turkey -- think of HQ-9. and WS-1, WS-2. and CRRC.

Australia -- think of HUAWEI.

North Korea......
 
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Well, Islamic System would have to be adapted to modern standards in order to have some chance which is not at this time possible with the current situation in the Muslim world. I hope some day it comes true inshAllah, but for now we will have to wait.
we will surly find that once an authentic Islamic System is made and operationalizes enough to produce results.

Then we will be in a better position to judge whether those results r compatible to the modern digital age or not.
 
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