In praise of free market

A survey-based report on Bangladesh's free market potential grabbed headlines in most local dailies recently. No doubt, the rarity of such positives, especially in the arena of doing business, was the reason why editors chose it as a lead item capable of assuaging much of the uncertainties in the country's business domain. The Washington-based Pew Research Centre released two reports early this month detailing findings from a global public opinion survey on economic issues conducted on 44 countries. Interestingly, most Bangladeshis would be delighted to learn from the reports that Bangladesh is one of the most supportive countries of the concept of free market. Although dependent on public opinion, the survey does make sense in that it has attempted to delve deep into areas where responses cannot be too generalised to be misleading. Another finding of the reports places Bangladesh as the most free market-oriented country in South Asia.

The Pew Research Centre reports, believed to be thoroughly exhaustive and comprehensive, have dealt with the most pertinent of the issues in determining the reflection of government actions on the public mind in the sphere of trade and commerce. These, among others, broadly include responses on the benefits or losses from trade, perceptions about socio-economic inequality, opinions on future prospects, and on how free market should operate. Of the issues, free market dominated as the most facilitating mechanism to push trade forward. Respondents from Bangladesh were next only to Vietnam in the Asian region in their support for free market.  Responses also came strongly in favour of foreign investment and technology transfer as driving tools for job creation and emergence of local manufacturing units.

It is heartening to see that the conclusion the survey has come up with, by way of public beliefs and perceptions, is an emphatic expression of positives, besides being in harmony with the government's current policies. It must not be argued that much of what has been achieved in this country over the past decades is a result of deregulation in trade and commerce, liberalisation and simplification of procedures-- the basic hallmarks of free market economy. But how efficiently the liberalisation of trade regime is being worked out, still remains to be a big question. As for investment, the survey findings do not reflect anything that contradicts with what the government keeps on harping. But the devices to attract foreign investment, not just by fiscal incentives but by developing adequate infrastructure, are still far from happening.

Lately however, the government, as it seems to be the case, is serious in its drive to seek out specialised zones for foreign investors with facilities including cost-sharing in setting up effluent treatment plants. The expectations of the people as reflected in the survey can only be meaningful once the measures are afoot. What the Pew survey has revealed reflects public perception about how things should be, and not the ground realities that often tell sad tales of lack of governance in conducting the free market - often reflected in the incapacity to curb money laundering, illegal capital flight, default bank loans, evasion of tax revenue and so on.