শেয়ার বাজার ও বিদেশী বিনিয়োগ বিষয় কাউছার ভূইয়াঁ

Living in Dhaka, Bangladesh: Buying Food

Buying Food in Dhaka: Urban life in Bangladesh, particularly in the upper-income areas, is changing fast. Just a few years ago it was not possible to buy daily necessary items like vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, milk, diary products, toiletries etc. in one single shop.

But now you can find shops like Agora Superstores at 101 Gulshan Avenue -RM Centre and other similar shops or mini-supermarkets in and around Baridhara, Banani, Dhanmondi and Gulshan areas where wealthy Bangladeshis and most expatriates live.

EU vs US Market Access for Bangladesh

The revised Rules of Origin (RoO) adopted by the European Commission, effective since 1 January 2011, allows Bangladesh to continue enjoying EU’s Generalised System of Preferences or GSP advantages even for the imported primary materials like fabrics. According to the new rules at least one production process must be completed in Bangladesh to be accepted in the EU as product of Bangladesh.

These rules apply not only to the textile products but also for any product but arms for export to the EU market.

In contrast to the EU, the USA does not provide duty-free access for Bangladesh although they enjoy most influence on Bangladesh, almost in every matter. Most recently the USA is using its power to pressurise Bangladesh threatening ”an effect on bilateral relations” in matters such as who should remain chief of the Grameen Bank even when the case is pending at the highest court of Bangladesh.

Mr. Gowher Rizvi, international affairs adviser to the prime minister of Bangladesh made some unusual but clear comments at a luncheon meeting on 22^nd March 2011 while the President of American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh threatened US-Bangladesh ‘tension’ (about the same matter) to hurt trade. Mr. Gowher Rizvi said that there were some pending issues with the US, like duty-free access of Bangladeshi products to the US market. Bangladesh paid $500 million in duties to the US government for exporting goods worth $4 billion last year, reports the daily star on 23^rd March 2011.

Textiles and clothing products are subject to 12% duty in the EU. As per GSP rules Bangladesh is exempt from this duty, while India and China must pay 9.6% and 12% duty respectively. Since beginning of 2011 knit export to the EU market has increased sharply, particularly due to the new RoO rules. Now, more than 70% of total knit export from Bangladesh is shipped to one of the EU member countries. These trends are expected to continue.

The Bangladesh Paradox

The Bangladesh Paradox: Bangladesh has achieved strong growth since the early 1990s. The World Bank estimates that it could join the ranks of middle-income countries (MICs) by 2016 or soon after. This will require increasing and sustaining the GDP growth to 7.5%. However, in order to sustain this high growth, Bangladesh needs to diversify the economy, increase production efficiencies and improve the environment for foreign direct investment.

The Bangladesh paradox has been one of surprising economic resilience despite of natural disasters, poor infrastructure, weak governance and political turbulences. Even if growth has lagged a number of other economies in Asia, most notably China, India and Vietnam, the volatility of Bangladesh’s growth has been lower. In effect, an entrepreneurial private sector base has compensated for a less supportive macro political environment.

Growth: Economy of Bangladesh grew at a healthy rate of 5.8% in fiscal year 2010 (FY10) despite the slow global recovery, continued severe power shortages and poor infrastructure. Much of this growth originated from the services and industrial sectors, driven by growth in consumption fuelled by strong remittance inflows, especially in the first part of FY10.

For the fiscal year 2011 (FY11) GDP growth is forecasted to be 6.3 percent. This estimate is largely based on proposed higher public and private investment. However, there are several downside risks. A weak global recovery could dampen the recovery in exports and further slow down remittances.

But the key issues are energy shortages, poor infrastructure, lack of long-term vision for skill development, increase production efficiencies, reduce cost of doing business and good governance.

 

Bangladesh’s exports

Bangladesh’s exports achieved a growth rate of 4.8% for the FY10 (year-to-year). The positive trend continued in the first two months of FY11 with a growth rate of 28.8%. Exports of readymade garments, the most important export item of the country, grew at 1.2% in FY10, which is the slowest growth rate since FY02, while the volume of manufactured goods increased by a rate of 5.2%.

The global recession caused a drop in retail sales in Bangladesh’s main export destinations (EU and USA). During the period May-July of FY10, exports of readymade garments to the US and Germany – the two largest export markets – declined by 4.1% and 7.9% respectively.

In addition to the slow recovery of most of the major export destinations for Bangladesh the labour unrest, shortage of power and natural gas supplies, poor transport and logistics systems and disruption at the Chittagong main port for an extended period of time have been a few domestic problems which contributed to this phenomena.

Recently some leading Bangladeshi readymade garment and textiles manufacturers have started aggressive expansion of production capacities which showed a higher production volume than the volume could be exported. This access volume of readymade garments are expected to be cleared slowly but surely as increasing number of international buyers find suppliers in Bangladesh.

The total export volume for FY10 has been recorded at 11.68 bln Euro by the Export promotion Bureau of Bangladesh of which 10.51 bln Euro or 89.95% were exported to the top 20 countries and nine items made 91.31% of the total export.

Germany is the 2^nd largest export destination for Bangladesh. Parallel to the general pattern of Bangladeshi export items 95.19% of its total export to Germany was generated from the readymade garment sector.

Investments and Policy Reforms in Bangladesh

Investment has been one of the major constraints to faster growth in FY10. Gross domestic investment remained stagnant at 24.4% of GDP reflecting both stagnant private and public investment rates. Weaknesses in the investment climate, rather than financing of investment, continue to constrain growth.

Reforms progressed in FY10, despite some setbacks. The ongoing and prospective changes in tax policy and administration could be critical for Bangladesh’s growth prospects. There has also been progress in reducing structural constraints to investment.

There has been some improvement in the institutional framework for facilitating public and private investments such as Special Economic Zones Act, Public-Private Partnership guidelines, Bangladesh Infrastructure Finance Fund. However, there were some setbacks in governance issues, for example, the proposed amendments to the Telecommunication Act and the Anti-Corruption Commission Act were not followed through.

 

Is Bangladesh the Next CHINDIA

In spite of typical challenges of a developing country Bangladesh has proven to be one of the consistently growing economies in the region since the early 1990s. This has been possible due to an entrepreneurial private sector base and openness to international trade and investments.

Should Bangladesh be able to address the key issues like energy shortages, poor infrastructure, lack of long-term vision for skill development, increase production efficiencies, reduce cost of doing business and good governance it has every chances to attract more investments (domestic and foreign) and generate more trade.

Bangladesh’s geographic location, in the heart of China and India, two rising economic powers in the region, will allow entrepreneurs (local and international) to tap into the large regional markets. Logistical preparations are already underway through opening Bangladeshi boarders with neighbouring countries allowing transit facilities.

Ministerialrat vom Bundeswirtschaftsministerium diskutiert bilateralen Handel und Investitionen mit Bangladesch

Bis vor kurzem bekam Bangladesch wenig Aufmerksamkeit aus Deutschland hinsichtlich des Handels und Investitionen. Das steigende bilaterale Handelsvolumen und die jüngsten Besuche von hochrangigen deutschen Beamten zeigen einen Trendwechsel.

Der aktuelle (2. und 3. Februar 2011) Besuch von Ministerialrat Hans-Wolfgang Busch, Direktor für Wirtschaftsbeziehungen im asiatisch-pazifischen Raum des deutschen Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Technologie, nach Bangladesch unterstreicht das deutsche Interesse an den Wirtschaftsbeziehungen mit Bangladesch.

Während seines zweitägigen Besuchs in Bangladesch, dem zweiten Zwischenstopp seiner Dienstreise in Asien, wird Herr Busch den bilateralen Handel und Investitionen mit der bengalischen Regierung und Wirtschaftsvertretern besprechen. Von Bangladesch aus wird er nach Sri Lanka weiterreisen.

Ziel seines Besuches in Bangladesch ist auch, die Chancen und Herausforderungen für die weitere Entwicklung der bilateralen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen zu bewerten. Weiterhin sind Gespräche mit Vertretern des Ministeriums für Handel, dem Ministerium für Schifffahrt, dem Board of Investment und der Zentralbank, geplant, um Rahmenbedingungen sowie spezifische Investitionsvorschläge zu diskutieren. Erst im November 2010 hatte eine deutschen Wirtschaftsdelegation unter Leitung von Staatssekretär Martin Biesel, Bangladesh besucht.

Die deutsch-bengalischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen haben in 2010 eine dynamische Entwicklung gesehen, wie die jüngsten Daten zeigen. Das gesamte Handelsvolumen zwischen den beiden Ländern von Januar bis November 2010 stieg um 18 Prozent gegenüber dem gleichen Zeitraum des Jahres 2009 und erreichte € 2.5 Milliarden.

Im gleichen Zeitraum hat sich der Wert der Ausfuhren aus Bangladesch nach Deutschland um 15 Prozent auf € 2.15 Milliarden erhöht.

Deutsche Exporte nach Bangladesch stiegen um 35 Prozent auf € 3.6 Milliarden und deutsche Maschinenexporte nach Bangladesch sogar um 73 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahr.

Deutschland ist der zweitgrößte Exportmarkt für Bangladesch. Es ist ein offener Markt mit freiem Zugang für Waren aus Bangladesch, ohne Importzölle. -: ENDE: -