In spite of the country's economy demonstrating resilience amidst one of the worst economic crises that the modern world has seen so far, some projections signal bad omens for it.
The resilience has been mainly due to deft macro-economic management and very limited exposure of the country's financial markets to the outside world.
When it became obvious that the financial meltdown would hit economies across continents, irrespective of their wealth status, some top notches in the immediate past caretaker government and the central bank and some captains of the private sector banked heavily on 'resilience' and claimed that the Bangladesh economy would go, more or less, unscathed. They even got irritated if anyone tried to explain the possible negative impact of the meltdown on the domestic economy.
But as the economy has started feeling the pinch of the meltdown, those optimists are maintaining a low profile and a few private sector captains are now seeking 'bailouts' from the government.
Export earnings for the last couple of months declined over those of the previous months. The remittance income flow during July-January period of the current fiscal remained more or less on target. The president of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), however, at a press conference last Monday, portrayed a gloomy scenario. He has expressed the fear that manpower export may decline by nearly 50 per cent and the remittance income by $1.0 billion this year (2009) compared to those of the previous year.
The country earned nearly $9.0 billion in the year 2008 from remittance. If the official statistics about the outflow of migrant workers are true, the remittance earnings should cross the $10 billion mark this year since a record 800,000 Bangladeshis left the country last year taking up jobs abroad. A decline in remittance income to the extent of $ 1.0 billion would mean that a good number of Bangladeshi expatriates would lose their jobs in the coming months.
A recent New York Times report claimed that the Dubai, hit hard by the falling oil revenue, was cutting nearly 1500 jobs per day, expatriate workers being the major victims. Other oil-rich Middle Eastern countries might be taking similar steps. Moreover, the money earned by the migrant workers by working beyond the scheduled time has also dried up. Because of economic reasons, most oil-rich countries of the Middle East have decided to put many ongoing infrastructure development projects on hold.
Now how do we know the actual number of migrant workers returning home after losing their jobs? Does the manpower ministry monitor at the airport the number of jobless migrant workers returning home everyday?
It is easy to monitor the number of workers going abroad since they need clearance from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training. But a migrant worker is not under any compulsion to inform the agency about the reasons for coming back home. So, any estimate on loss of jobs of the expatriate workers would be based on pure guess-work.
But the fact remains that many Bangladeshi expatriate workers being the victims of the current financial meltdown are returning home almost everyday. Some newspapers have published reports and photographs of the returnees. Since the victims are not returning home in large groups, as happened in the case of deportation by the Kuwait government some months back, nobody takes notice of the jobless workers returning home individually almost everyday.
Any significant fall in remittance income is bound to leave a destabilizing effect on the country's balance of payments (BoP) situation, particularly when the export scenario is not as rosy as it was before.
What is worse is that the loss of jobs by the expatriate workers has the potential of strengthening further the recent reverse trend in poverty reduction in the rural areas. The remittance money has played a very important role in buoying up the rural economy for over past two decades or more. Though a large part of the remittance fund has ended up in land and real estate, pushing up their costs astronomically, it has helped growth of scores of small, medium and micro enterprises where thousands of people have got employment.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has forecast that more than 140 million people could be plunged in poverty and 23 million lose their jobs in Asia this year because of the global financial meltdown.
The ILO has not given any country-specific estimate but it is assumed that China and India would be affected more than others because of their greater exposure to external financial markets.
But the government does need to come out with some plans and programmes to deal with the latest unfolding situation. It must monitor how many Bangladeshi expatriate workers are losing their jobs and returning home. Under the given circumstances, diplomatic initiatives to stop such retrenchment are unlikely to work. Yet efforts should be there.
Meanwhile, with a view to helping the jobless expatriate workers, the government might use a part of the large fund mobilised over the year in the name of the welfare of the expatriate workers. If such move is taken, the plan to set up a bank with remittance money might be received well by the expatriate workers.
BAIRA fear signals bad omen for BoP
Shamsul Huq Zahid | Published: February 25, 2009 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
Share if you like