Do you think Bangladesh would join Belt and Road Initiative without India?

[UKBengali]

Problem is:

a) The BRI "beneficiaries" are far stupider and way more corrupt than their European equivalents under Marshall plan

b) None of these beneficiaries ever really experienced a social enlightenment + industrial revolution before in the sense being paralleled here.

c) China (as polity, society, economic theory etc) certainly did not historically originate from/tie in with these BRI countries like the US did w.r.t Europe.

a) b) and c) are all linked to each other too.

Your quack analysis is thus severely deficient as usual, and the time you spent writing it could have been used to save a bunch of BD peasants from selling their meagre land to go to India for basic X-rays even.


@Desert Fox

Butt-hurt loser strikes yet again!

Is anyone saying that China hopes for the BRI countries to be the same as Western Europe or Japan within 1-2 decades?

Even if China helps these countries achieve "middle-income" status in 15-20 countries that would be a good achievement. Pakistan has had it's growth rate increased by 2-3 % a year already by CPEC. Run this for 2 decades and you can see how much larger Pakistan's economy would be because of CPEC.

 

[Nilgiri]

Indeed. People also fail to take into consideration that the German's and the Japanese were already an extremely productive and industrious people by their nature before WW2 and the resulting destruction and the Marshal Plan is given way too much credit than it deserves just as Operation Overlord and D-Day is given too much credit in mainstream culture even though WW2 was decided in the steppes of Russia.

The speed with which the Germans and Europe in general recovered was due to pre-existing work ethic of those people which once again made Germany a powerful economic force in Central Europe, though admittedly an American vassal state nonetheless.

What i see with China is that it is less concerned with the positive development of the countries it is pouring billions into. The investments are mostly beneficial to Chinese and these countries are just massive dumping grounds for Chinese cheap consumer goods.

Yup exactly, and you see the typical mindless idiot already blabbing above me in the usual response.

Too many people just don't get you have to fix faults head on (best you can, with what you inherited as a people.... and see where it goes) than cling to others "fixing" for you in such a one-sided way for them. This is in operation at different scales in different societies, no one is perfect, but boy are some way worse than others I have to say.

It all speaks to their overall character in the end....and the fact they always have to learn things the hard way again and again too....but by then its already the next generation, lessons are never learned and a new bunch of sheeple are all doing the same thing all over again.

 

[Vijyes Yechury]

Not being hostile to China's geo-political ambition is certainly an important consideration for the Chinese strategists, but I think even the bigger incentive to Chinese vast assistance to Asia-Pacific region is to turn these China's neighborhood countries into a thriving, prosperous consumer market capable of buying hundreds of billions of dollar Chinese industrial goods.Because unless China's neighborhood become equally prosperous and 'worthy' economic partners, It will be increasingly difficult to maintain China's continued economic expansion in coming decades. I can think of one such similar attempt in history, both in scale and significance. That is American Marshall Plan for Europe after ww2. When America injected billions of dollar into Europe to hasten the post war recovery there. Halting the advance of Communism was an obvious strategy, but equally important was to turn the European people into rich consumers capable of buying a lot of American products.Both the Chinese BRI and American Marshall plan can be termed as ''Co-prosperity'' plan where an economic symbiotic relationship between me and my neighbors can be achieved for the benefit of both.

First of all, it is bad news for China to help Bangladesh improve manufacturing. That will make Bangladesh a competitor. Next, USA helped Europe because they share cultural bond. USA-UK relationship is something unbreakable and is like relation between two states of a country. Germany and Japan, on the other hand were not gifted by USA free of cost. Germany and Japan are till date under USA occupation. Their foreign policy is dictated by USA and they enjoy USA nuclear umbrella. They are not allowed to develop defence items like nuclear bombs, Ballistic missiles etc.

The case with Bangladesh and China is not like the USA marshall plan. Bangladesh is not a country with good law and order or with educated people. Bangladesh will have to sell itself as a vassal state of China to get investment in manufacturing or other key sectors. Else, Bangladesh will only be given "loans" with high interest rates

 

[Mage]

Your GDP is not SDDS standard, thus has too much inflation laundered into it (BBS household income survey shows exactly that), thus not a good denominator to use....given foreign debt is fully logged by non-BD entities (doing the lending) but they have zero involvement for the GDP calculation.

Thus lets look at just the numerator and actual SDDS-worthy (and more relevant Mx) denominators like say your market cap.

When that is done, a (short term debt driven) ramp is definitely seen compared to before.



Its not "all" a hoax. Just potentially a pretty significant part of it (and could be done simply with intention to try portray a lower debt-GDP loading too)....till BBS corrects and standardises to world standards + requisite transparency of at least a solid GDDS country (forget SDDS for time being).

This is not just what I am saying either (this has more on the household income disparity I mentioned earlier, I can go into why the difference would be mostly inflation laundering afforded by the lax standards if you really want to know about that):

https://opinion.bdnews24.com/2017/12/18/where-did-the-benefits-of-economic-growth-disappear/

There is some disquiet among economists about the quality of data provided by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). No less a person than the Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister has expressed his dissatisfaction about the qualifications of the BBS staff and the quality of their work. These are very long standing problems, and yet, very little has been done to improve the quality of the services provided by BBS.

So is your economic adviser to PM "idune" as well? You should really read this whole article thoroughly before your reply.

Well the article talks more about increasing inequities in the country. Which in fact is true. I need to know two things. What are some other GDDS countries?(I want to know what other countries share this tag with BD) and what are the difference between nominal and real income? Ideally, I should look these things myself. But work has me exhausted so I'll leave it to you to inform me.

Its no wonder that BBS does data fudging. However their stated growth rate isn't that higher than others. Like BBS 7.1%, ADB 6.9%, IMF 6.5%, WB 6.7%. It usually goes like this. So if BBS report 7% growth, it can be 6.5%.....but I don't think it will be 3%. Although Idune will claim it is -5% in reality.

To be honest, a lot of works are going on in BD compared to previous times. Reduction in extreme poverty, Power generation increase, rise in exports are all reality. When I was a kid like even 10-12 years ago, door to door begging was a common thing. Now it is almost non-existent. Rickshaw fare from my house to school was 10-12 taka in 2005. Now it probably is at least 30 taka. 4-5 hour Load shedding was a common affair. Now it is down. Exports have risen a lot since 2010. Although it is stagnating lately. But govt is trying to boost it by setting up numerous export zones. Gov't are also trying to build IT parks(which should have been done decades ago like the metro rail in Dhaka)....the results so far may not be satisfactory but the effort and intent is there.

The biggest problem is inefficient bureaucracy. Every project in BD takes much more time than originally planned and costs much more than originally expected. If I want BD to improve on something, this is the first thing I'd want them to work on.

 

[Nilgiri]

Well the article talks more about increasing inequities in the country.

Actually it goes lot deeper than that.

If we are to believe that nearly all the GDP increase is hitting only the top 1% or 5% etc (i.e average/median households are bypassed to the level that their real income actually declined)....there is no correlating increase in say BD market cap to suggest so.....neither no massive swelling in investment to account for it....i.e the routes that hot spearhead money would go to (as it has in other EMs).

i.e when India was going through the much quoted "jobless growth" period (increasing inequality from spearhead pull but little base recharging etc) during the UPA I period (2004 - 2009ish), there was routine indication where the hot money (raw GDP nominal) was going with strong correlation to global EM's and their benchmarks....there was massive market cap increase + investment increase to account for it (and some asset inflation too, but that was not counted in nominal... given stringent SDDS accounting norms).

For example, Indian market cap increased from 2004 - 2010 from around 390 billion USD to 1.6 trillion....i.e about 4 times increase. Indian GFCF increased from a level of around 30% to 41% of GDP in this time period.

This is not being seen to that level in BD (and GDDS allows many holes in the floorboards), so I would like to know where it is going. BD market cap has increased from around 41 billion USD to 86 billion* USD (2010 to 2017)...i.e a double rather than much higher level (i.e one that correlates well with the claimed nominal GDP increase with no household income increase). GFCF increased in this time period from around 26% to 29%....again not really commensurate with the claimed nominal GDP increase if its all going to top spearhead tier only.

To me occam's razor is asset inflation and other inflation laundered by BBS into the nominal figure to the degree afforded by the lax standards and also internal propaganda needed.

What are some other GDDS countries?(I want to know what other countries share this tag with BD)

http://dsbb.imf.org/pages/gdds/countrylist.aspx

and what are the difference between nominal and real income?

Inflation.....i.e price level increase for the exact same unit of consumption/production for a good or service....due to money supply/demand mismatches along the economic network (given not every good and service is connected with the same time/distance to the country's central bank/other sources of liquidity).

Somewhat similar to what PPP does (except that uses an international price level reference).

Like BBS 7.1%, ADB 6.9%, IMF 6.5%, WB 6.7%.

Erm....all of the others use BBS as the base reference and just add a few correlation factors they prioritise a bit more. If the base reference is getting inflation laundering in it, it is not the others job/objective to correct on their end given:

a) they have no real data themselves to base this upon.

b) BD imprint on world economy is marginal enough its not an issue for real global institution concern. Its really BD that suffers in the end long term when correction exercises/rebasing/extra debt burden than economy could handle (because of inflated denominator) etc... happens.

c) When a more pure "from scratch" conservative analysis is done driven only by a set of consumption + investment indices, rather than having to go through the BBS (potentially heavily politically compromised) rigmarole.....we get what Harvard published as BD long term growth rate - around 4%. Way more in line with the household income survey result and the actual level of spearhead growth.

To be honest, a lot of works are going on in BD compared to previous times. Reduction in extreme poverty, Power generation increase, rise in exports are all reality.

Sure, but the issue is the actual level and correlation of these to the BBS claim for GDP. Some of these you mention are also fully dependent BBS measurements (like the extreme poverty). With the other (3rd party fact check available) stuff like power gen and exports, its already baked into the Harvard analysis of 4% growth (these are consumption + investment indices used in the analysis)....you would have to do a lot better to get that to a believable 6%+. AND/OR become SDDS in which case you have the standards and frequencies needed (in the macro data dissemination) to become more credible on it.

When I was a kid like even 10-12 years ago, door to door begging was a common thing. Now it is almost non-existent.

I dunno, I have heard different from others...and others support you....and others are inbetween (decreased in some spots, stayed the same or increased in others)

Its good to hear in your case....but we need proper macro data and standards in play to know what is the actual macro scale for a country as a whole.

I'm not going to judge the whole case of India by what I've seen when I visit particular spots either.

Rickshaw fare from my house to school was 10-12 taka in 2005. Now it probably is at least 30 taka.

A lot of that is inflation though. Again its the difference between nominal and real. Have to actually ask the rickshaw wallah if he can put more food on the plate, better education, better living for his family etc (after the increased spendings on static loads like fuel, rent etc) with the "increased" earnings. The BBS household survey on real income is again quite sobering for the macro situation regarding this if its accurate in the end.

4-5 hour Load shedding was a common affair. Now it is down.

@Tanveer666 and cpl others have said different. It went down for a while, but now its back with some fury in parts. Again which parts are doing better, same and worse needs proper macro data and standards (with long term improvement of those).

Exports have risen a lot since 2010. Although it is stagnating lately.

Again the correlation with the claimed GDP increase is more limited....esp if real household income is stagnant (i.e not being absorbed/effected on the 99% of people).

India increased its total exports about 7 times from 2000 to 2011 (and got only some household income increase for it....though its certainly nowhere as near as low as BBS says for BD).

BD in similar time frame (2005 to 2016) increased about 3.5 times. With no real change in the other relevant markers (3rd party investment, wealth pools etc) to the degrees needed if theres zero (or even negative) household income change....and using your logic of export increase.... we are to seriously believe no funny business is going on when we are talking about the claimed BBS GDP level?...when per capita it has supposedly narrowed (nominally) with India with no real household income gain at all?....and PPP multiplier still atrociously low (with an even lower export/GDP % level than India) as result? I don't think so....there is clear inflation laundering going on.

No need to believe me on it though, just watch for yourself the re-basing exercise shenanigans, they are already in full flow like they were in Pakistans case some years back (they developed cold feet on it when they saw new industries were shrinking with newer base and cause a deflator effect on various esp debt/govt connected indices). BBS is in catch 22 situation now with its household income data....after pushing it as a main component of the rebasing effort when proposed years back. This is what I said way back when you cannot assume rebasing will suddenly bump up an economy by some % points....it really really depends on how much inflation you laundered (on purpose or by accident or both) in the interim for the GDP (and its components) number....the less you did that, the better your rebasing jump will be. The more laundering you did, the worse your rebasing effort will go, it can even be negative.

But govt is trying to boost it by setting up numerous export zones. Gov't are also trying to build IT parks(which should have been done decades ago like the metro rail in Dhaka)....the results so far may not be satisfactory but the effort and intent is there.

I will let time speak for that again. If there really was true positive intent, BD govt would fix the real easy stuff first (excise duties to 0 esp for prime MVA assembly sector, fire that whole department of bureaucracy, assign whichever by merit to tax dept instead with data compilation rather than multi-route extraction in mind....just one example of an actual reform)....rather than layer more bureaucracy with the export zone optics (trust me I have seen how this crap works near firsthand on the ground in India/TN case, its extremely bureaucrat dependent past the paper). @bluesky

Intent is always clearly manifested by govt fixing its (esp tier II and III etc) bureaucracy first and foremost (and it correlated very high to level of performance of various Indian states too, no matter how rotter all their tier I's are), rather than adding more programs and such with the same useless byzantine body. If it just does the latter, chances are its intent is quite something else (optics and political preservation).

Each passing year the RMG stagnates more and more, no buffers for actual capex import are created (for genuine new industrial base) and more stasis sets in....you will see what I mean.....because the govt will just bunker in more and more and create a worsening situation on the ground and shield it with more and more buffers and optics. There needs to be a dynamic process and how to actually breakout and reform the bureaucracy (and financial sector)....till then its just adding more muck for optics/buying time/buying more leverage with elections/stability/nepotism chains as priority instead.

The biggest problem is inefficient bureaucracy. Every project in BD takes much more time than originally planned and costs much more than originally expected. If I want BD to improve on something, this is the first thing I'd want them to work on.

Ok good you get it! Now I feel silly typing what I just did but anyway....that is exactly where intent of a govt should first be illustrated and more importantly proven. This needs a dynamic political environment....if they feel stable/secure....they just continue status quo....thats the problem, where is the balance between stability/dynamism for BD?

Sorry for the long post, but take your time to read it....no rush for reply.

@Joe Shearer @Gibbs @Skies @Neptune_

 

[UKBengali]

Erm....all of the others use BBS as the base reference and just add a few correlation factors they prioritise a bit more. If the base reference is getting inflation laundering in it, it is not the others job/objective to correct on their end given:

a) they have no real data themselves to base this upon.

b) BD imprint on world economy is marginal enough its not an issue for real global institution concern. Its really BD that suffers in the end long term when correction exercises/rebasing/extra debt burden than economy could handle (because of inflated denominator) etc... happens.

Butt-hurt loser strikes once again!

Are BD exports just an imagination? From 2010-2017 BD exports grew by more than 100%

Electricity consumption also more than doubled but hey BBS is making this up for the "feelz" eh? lol

Lastly BD budgets are an imagination and spending given is not real but again made up by BBS.

One more time, what is wrong with you dude?

 

[Nilgiri]

Butt-hurt loser strikes once again!

Are BD exports just an imagination? From 2010-2017 BD exports grew by more than 100%

Electricity consumption also more than doubled but hey BBS is making this up for the "feelz" eh? lol

Lastly BD budgets are an imagination and spending given is not real but again made up by BBS.

One more time, what is wrong with you dude?

Again if same BBS says the household incomes have stagnated or even declined since 2010....there is nowhere near the rate of increase in the market cap + investment (by the 1% grabbing all the GDP increase) if all the "exports" "increasing by 100%" are going there....because you can just compare to pretty much any large population EM historical trends on the matter yourself. You can't hold all sides of argument here.

There is reason why just one Indian company is now worth double the total market cap of DSE (with all this growth that is effecting just the 1% elite in BD according to BBS).....and we are supposed to believe nominal per capita GDP of BD is nearly the same.....erm ok. Different inflation standards (hence why BD takes a big ole hit in the PPP multiplier...it is strikingly obvious now)....I know it hurts you, but you can wait and watch the long term result of this.....along with stagnant reform by BD in the most crucial spots (bureaucracy and finance sector - given these are also the most important to control and keep status quo by certain politicians).

 

[Mage]

I'll reply to the whole post later. Now just for this part

http://dsbb.imf.org/pages/gdds/countrylist.aspx

Bangladesh doesn't look out of place here at all. Heck even Saudi Arabia(G20), Brunei, UAE, Qatar, Serbia are here. So is Pakistan, Myanmar, Iran, Gabon(One of the very best of Africa). I'd be surprised if BD had a higher data dissemination standard than them...What's the big deal here? Somehow Senegal is SDDS...I wonder how.

 

[Nilgiri]

Bangladesh doesn't look out of place here at all. Heck even Saudi Arabia(G20), Brunei, UAE, Qatar, Serbia are here. So is Pakistan, Myanmar, Iran, Gabon(One of the very best of Africa).

A lot are oil rich countries you will notice. They do not prefer SDDS probably because it will affect the market cap of their big energy funds (i.e reduces speculation void)...its an OPEC strategy developed long ago (if you ever look at say how ARAMCO releases actual data rarely). They do not really need credibility because they can just throw easy primary sector money around....akin to the comparison of developing human resource vs natural resource extraction.

But for non-resource rich developing countries, SDDS really should be the goal...given doing things the hard (but long term beneficial) way is the only real option.

 

[UKBengali]

Again if same BBS says the household incomes have stagnated or even declined since 2010....there is nowhere near the rate of increase in the market cap + investment (by the 1% grabbing all the GDP increase) if all the "exports" "increasing by 100%" are going there....because you can just compare to pretty much any large population EM historical trends on the matter yourself. You can't hold all sides of argument here.

There is reason why just one Indian company is now worth double the total market cap of DSE (with all this growth that is effecting just the 1% elite in BD according to BBS).....and we are supposed to believe nominal per capita GDP of BD is nearly the same.....erm ok. Different inflation standards (hence why BD takes a big ole hit in the PPP multiplier...it is strikingly obvious now)....I know it hurts you, but you can wait and watch the long term result of this.....along with stagnant reform by BD in the most crucial spots (bureaucracy and finance sector - given these are also the most important to control and keep status quo by certain politicians).

"BBS says the household incomes have stagnated or even declined since 2010"

Is BBS that stupid to say this and then fudge growth figures for "feelz"?lol

Plenty of countries have had stagnating standards of living and also strong growth.

Again, what is wrong with you?

 

[Nilgiri]

Is BBS that stupid to say this and then fudge growth figures for "feelz"?lol

Which one has more intent and which one has more accident is hard to say (or combinations of both) when the data dissemination has low frequency....which is the whole point in improving BBS to SDDS standard in first place.

 

[Rana4pak]

How can Bangladesh(girl)go against the will of her illegal father(India).today bangladesh is product of RSS .modi proudly accepts that in public

 

[Nilgiri]

Plenty of countries have had stagnating standards of living and also strong growth.

Not at this scale (real income decline over 6 years at claimed 6+ % growth average), at this development level (really low base where you physically have to try hard to not go up) and without high-velocity input factor (like say massive energy/natural resource boom aka the dutch disease).

 

[UKBengali]

Not at this scale (real income decline over 6 years at claimed 6+ % growth average), at this development level (really low base where you physically have to try hard to not go up) and without high-velocity input factor (like say massive energy/natural resource boom aka the dutch disease).

BD real salary increase in 2017 was 3.6% projected to increase to 4.3% this year

India real salary increase in 2017 was 5.6% projected to increase to 5.3% this year.

https://www.willistowerswatson.com/...ay-in-Asia-Pacific-Willis-Towers-Watson-Study

More BBS "feelz"? lol

 

[Nilgiri]

BD real salary increase in 2017 was 3.6% projected to increase to 4.3% this year

India real salary increase in 2017 was 5.6% projected to increase to 5.3% this year.

https://www.willistowerswatson.com/...ay-in-Asia-Pacific-Willis-Towers-Watson-Study

More BBS "feelz"? lol

a) Salary budget ...how many workers % wise are in formal sector (esp for tier I niche surveying conducted by such groups) to begin with?

b) Period in question was 2010 - 2016 for macro level household, not yoy increase of some niche sector companies.

c) Tell me how many households* (surveyed by BBS) draw a niche formal sector salary ? Give me your best guess if you can't find the number

*Like the rickshaw-wallah school fare @Mage was mentioning before

Seriously idiot, learn some basics first before you go digging around for piecemeal snapshots to fit your lousy narrative.

@bluesky