1) Many of the countries who started at the time when Japan started its economic development lag behind this country today. Examples are Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Chili and others. They are far behind Japan. One can say they do not need more economic development because they are content with their standard of living. It can also be said that these countries have too much of food and too less a population.
2) Similarly, it may happen that the BD's per capita GDP exceeeds that of India in the near future. Bangladesh people have quite a propensity to savings. Banks are awashed with money which was borrowed heavily by the GoB to finance a deficit budget. Generally, we criticize this move. But, it is also true that private sector is shying away from borrowing money from Banks because this sector cannot invest it unless more and more electricity is availbale for their workshops.
3) Every year new wealth is now produced and more than 25% of it is kept as savings. At a right time, when power and gas are more available, this money will be borrowed and used by the private sector to build more manufacturing plants in the country. At 25% of GDP the savings may be more than $25 billion. At a capital:output ratio of 3:1, this $25 billion is able to produce more than $8 billion worth of additional goods and services.
4) There was a time when Bangladeshi people were averse to business, trade and other economic activities. But, there is already an increasing number of people who like to invest their money in sectors they will decide by themselves. It means that different people with different minds will invest in various fields of activities, and they will do so without any govt directives, because it is a free economy country.
5) All the cumulative activities within the country will keep on increasing the national GDP year after year. However, we cannot keep on going up unless we have export market all over the world. USA and europe are giving our products almost a free access. West wants a progressive and developed BD. They have opened their market for our products because they want to get rid of another center of Talibanism. An economically underdeveloped BD is certain to lure many of its dissatisfied citizens to radicalism. West wants a developed Bangaldesh in the Turkish model.
6) There is a great future lying ahead for Bangladesh. West is similarly eager to help India to get out of its poverty. But, it all depends upon the policy of its political and business leaders if they can go very far. Like many other countries if they cannot go farther and BD goes, it is possible that our tiny country's per capita GDP will surpass that of India's in the medium term. However, note that although India lags behind us in social sectors, it is far ahead in engineering, technology and manufacturing. BD has to invest in these sectors in order to churn out more value added products in the country.
7) The more the values are added, the more the GDP rises. For example a car may have a ton of steel. A ton of iron ore may cost $100 or a little more. A ton of steel scrap may cost $400 or more. But, a ton or steel rod for construction may cost about $1000. It means 3 to 10 times more values are added to a finished steel bar/rod.
8) People pay more than $10,000 for a private car that weighs about 1 ton. It means 30 to 100 times more values are added to a car. Car is only an example. Same things happen to all other products of steel, plastic and others. However, a comparatively large amount of investment is needed to produce more value added products.
9) BD has to wait for quite a few years when a large amount of investment is made in heavy/tertiary industries. Once this happens, the economy will be self-propelled, and sky MAY be the limit of our economy.
