World Bank senior vice president and chief economist Kaushik Basu on Sunday said Bangladesh has to ensure easy business process and speed up the investment-GDP ratio to increase economic growth to eight per cent from the existing of 6.50 per cent or 6.70 per cent. ‘I request the Bangladesh Government and Bangladesh Bank to take measures to ease the existing business process to speed up the investment in the country’, he said at a public lecture on ‘The World Economy, Bangladesh and Regional Cooperation: Problems and Prospects’ at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital. The BB organised the public lecture presided over by its governor Atiur Rahman. The WB has estimated that the country’s GDP growth would stand at 6.50 per cent for fiscal year 2015-16 and 6.70 per cent for the FY17, Kaushik said. The country’s investment-GDP ratio is now below 30 per cent and it should increase to 33 per cent to 34 per cent to enjoy the eight per cent GDP growth, he pointed out. He said that inequality was now a global problem as the disparity between poor and rich had gradually increased in Bangladesh, India, China, United States and other countries. The country’s government should increase the tax collection from the rich to reduce the inequality, he said. Information technology is another option to reduce the inequality as the workers will be able to work sitting in Dhaka for a company located in Germany or Australia by getting the internet access, he said. Foreign direct investment in the country has also increased in the recent years as it (FDI) was 0.01 per cent against the GDP in 1982 but it crossed 1 per cent in 2015. ‘The government should take measures to increase the FDI flow into the country. We usually suspect that the inflow of FDI is not good for us as the East India Company had come here under the FDI process’. Bangladesh is now a very mature country and it can welcome the inflow of the FDI to boost business, he said. The government cannot provide job to all but the entrepreneurs will be able to resolve the unemployment crisis, he said. Kaushik said that appropriate policy design and business ethos was also important to speed up the country’s progress. Good designed policy can make a lot as it contributes to eradicate poverty, and boost the education and health sectors, he said. He, however, said that it was not possible to prepare good designed policy overnight. The WB chief economist said that adequate energy played a vital role in speeding up the economic activities. Bangladesh along with India, Nepal and Bhutan will have to resolve the energy crisis collectively, he said. Kaushik underlined the importance of research and higher education to develop entrepreneurship. At a question-answer session, asked which prescription will be accepted by Bangladesh as International Monetary Fund, World Bank, US and other influential agencies and countries usually placed suggestions to the country, he said that Bangladesh is a very mature country and it should take the best suggestions from the agencies and countries. Atiur said that unlike emerging markets where growth rate had slowed down to from 7.60 per cent in 2010 to less than 4 per cent in 2015, Bangladesh is on a sustained, steady trend of 6 per cent plus average annual GDP growth rate for more than half a decade. ‘This year we are even targeting 7 per cent growth rate. A recent World Bank Policy Note (Slowdown in Emerging Markets : Rough Patch or Prolonged Weakness?) reports that the slowdown in the Emerging Markets stimulated concurrent declines in the demand components, particularly in the growth rates of investment and exports,’ he said. Conversely, resilience of the Bangladesh economy over years amid repeated episodes of natural calamities and external shocks has provided the markets and entrepreneurs a predictable policy environment of low uncertainty, he said. BB chief economist Biru Paksha Paul moderated the pubic lecture.
