BD needs to address three major challenges: Tanaka

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) President Dr Akihiko Tanaka said Monday Bangladesh needs to address three major challenges including ensuring good governance to make the proposed BIG-B initiative successful.
The BIG-B (Bay of Bengal Industrial growth Belt), a grand design to promote industrial agglomeration along the Dhaka-Chittagong-Cox's Bazar belt, is a proposed initiative by the governments of Bangladesh and Japan.
Other two key challenges of the government are: Coping with the country's growing energy demand and creation of employment opportunity for its growing manpower.
"It is still a big challenge for the government of Bangladesh to provide sound and credible governance to its citizens and others including international investors", Mr Tanaka said this while delivering a lecture styled 'JICA's Strategy: Bengal Bay Industrial Growth Belt (BIG-B) & Beyond' at the Senate Building of Dhaka University (DU). DU organised the special lecture over the proposed BIG-B plan.
The university's vice chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique chaired the event. Among others, DU Pro-vice Chancellors (academic) Prof Dr Nasreen Ahmed and Prof Dr Shahid Akhtar Hossain (admin), chairman of DU Oceanography Department Prof Dr Md Kawser Ahmed were present on the occasion while DU registrar Syed Rezaur Rahman moderated.
The visiting JICA president said Bangladesh can turn these hurdles into opportunities, if it takes necessary actions to take advantages from the shifting global economy.
"The Bay of Bengal is centrally located in this tectonic change as it can work as a key junction between the two oceans", he said and termed Bangladesh the linchpin of the Indo-Pacific region.
To achieve the complete fruits of the shifting global economy, the JICA official said the country should build an enabling environment for realising dynamic and inclusive development with consistent policy planning and execution.
He said Bangladesh must also address the massive employment demand for its adults or three million young people who will tap at the door of labour market every year over the next 20 years.
"The key challenge for the government is to prevent these aspiring new entrants from becoming an onus on the society and obtain full benefit of the country's demographic bonus", Mr Tanaka said adding that it requires expansion of the domestic market size, easing of fiscal burden on social safety nets and ensuring quality education.
Regarding the energy deficit, the JICA official said since the late 1960s Bangladesh is largely depended on its domestic natural gas for all energy used for power generation and industrial and household purposes.
"The country's natural gas reserve is now depleting rapidly, this means Bangladesh will very likely to suffer from a reserve deficit of this primary energy resource and will inevitably start importing coal and LNG", he said adding that this might trigger huge trade deficits in coming years, which could jeopardise the country's macroeconomic stability.
Terming Bangladesh the linchpin of the Indo-Pacific region, the JICA president said it stands to gain great deal from the shift in global economic dynamism toward the Indian Ocean.
"Indeed, the BIG-B seeks to take full advantage of this trend," the visiting president said adding that it foresees Bangladesh transcending its national borders to become a 'nod & hub' of the regional economy so that she might reshape herself as the sparkling trading nation deeply incorporating into inter-regional and global value chain network.
The JICA official said yet perhaps it is high-time for the Bay of Bengal to be considered as the coherent strategic region within the boarder framework of the Indo-Pacific region.
He said the JICA is committed to bringing the BIG-B to success. Already the government of Bangladesh and the cooperating agency have jointly identified the Matabari area, an Island of salt and shrimp located 60km south off Chittagong city, as the tripping point for carrying out BIG-B.
"This island and integrated industrial and surrounding areas have all the potentials to become completely transformed into integrated industrial and trading hub as well as central energy base", he noted.
In addition, the visiting JICA chief also strongly suggested Bangladesh to join the regional comprehensive economic partnership, which is currently being negotiated among the ten Asian countries including Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India to achieve the development target.
He noted that Bangladesh can provide the gateway to the Bay of Bengal for the South Asian hinterlands comprising Bhutan, Nepal and India's seven north-eastern states.