Form task force now to cope with new global recession

Worldwide, the appeal of the US dollar as reserve currency is losing its luster, albeit slowly; individuals as well as institutions are scrambling to put their monies in gold as a safe haven or better option. The stock market plunge is not remaining limited to the US but spreading to Europe and Asia, showing a persisting declining trend. There could be several reasons for this. The players in worldwide financial markets and economic managers in developed countries and big economies, are understandably not so much influenced by the optimistic rhetoric of politicians or government leaders but make their calculations from their own hard-boiled experiences. Soaring of the US national debt to an unprecedented level, raising of its ceiling, downgrading of the US credit status, sluggish rate of job creation in the US and the overall slowdown in the US economy, are all the real and hard indicators they need to draw conclusions about the direction of the world's biggest economy. Added very formidably to the present plight of the US are the fast worsening conditions of European economies which form the second bastion of global economic power. The European Commission President has warned that eurozone countries have failed to effectively address their debt problems. As a result, it is apprehended that like Greece, Irish Republic and Portugal, the debt crisis will also engulf Italy and Spain; economic conditions of Japan, another pillar of the global economy, are far from satisfactory. All these only suggest a second coming of the global recession although the affected ones have hardly recovered from the first one. Bangladesh could largely avoid the effects of the first global recession because of its relatively insular position in the global economy. But whether it can go on remaining thus unaffected, is another matter. In this context, business leaders in the country are urging the government to be proactive and form a taskforce. The aim of this task force should be to formulate policies that could be executed precisely to successfully cope with the new global recession. M Andaleeb Hossain Uttara, Sector 3, Dhaka