Be competitive and don't blame globalisation
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
GLOBALISATION, as the speakers at a recent seminar have noted, has hardly yielded benefits to countries like Bangladesh. It had exposed the nascent local enterprises to unfair competition and forced many of them to close down leading to considerable loss of income and employment. Meanwhile, some concerned sections of people have pleaded for giving subsidies and other supports for economic operators in order to offset the unfavourable effects of uneven globalisation. Such sections of people note that a half of the budget of the European Union (EC) goes to subsidising agricultural products of member countries. They also cite the example of how the United States, the champion of globalisation, raised a tariff wall to block export of steel and steel products to it by some major steel producing countries.
However, all these facts do not create a case for Bangladesh to expect a reversal of globalisation. It also cannot expect to survive economically in the new century and the new millennium by spoonfeeding the slothful and inefficient enterprises. Globalisation has its negatives but it also has its positives. It creates the necessary stimulus or compulsion on poorly-run and non-innovative domestic enterprises to shake off their inefficiency to become lean and fit to be able to compete with their rivals in both the domestic and foreign markets. In the process, they can improve product quality, and ensure profit and competitiveness by cost cutting.
Bangladesh entrepreneurs need to understand the name of the game of economic survival. Quality control, spending on research and development (R &D), economy in stock control, adoption of more and more efficient production processes or factory layouts, using of more up-to-date machinery, etc., are the keys to holding on to market shares and provide any assurance of business success. Our entrepreneurs would do well to attend to these factors in the short- and long-run, instead of scapegoating globalisation for all of their troubles.
Md Habibullah
Iqbal Road, Mohammadpur,
Dhaka
However, all these facts do not create a case for Bangladesh to expect a reversal of globalisation. It also cannot expect to survive economically in the new century and the new millennium by spoonfeeding the slothful and inefficient enterprises. Globalisation has its negatives but it also has its positives. It creates the necessary stimulus or compulsion on poorly-run and non-innovative domestic enterprises to shake off their inefficiency to become lean and fit to be able to compete with their rivals in both the domestic and foreign markets. In the process, they can improve product quality, and ensure profit and competitiveness by cost cutting.
Bangladesh entrepreneurs need to understand the name of the game of economic survival. Quality control, spending on research and development (R &D), economy in stock control, adoption of more and more efficient production processes or factory layouts, using of more up-to-date machinery, etc., are the keys to holding on to market shares and provide any assurance of business success. Our entrepreneurs would do well to attend to these factors in the short- and long-run, instead of scapegoating globalisation for all of their troubles.
Md Habibullah
Iqbal Road, Mohammadpur,
Dhaka