Infrastructure constraints are a roadblock

The table, Pillars of Performance, highlights the score that Bangladesh gets for 29 of the 114 parameters and juxtaposes them with the average for the world. The scale runs from 1-7 with 7 being the best and 1 the lowest.
What are the key takeaways from this table? First, we need to appreciate that Bangladesh has done better than average on several scores or close to the average, especially in the area of macro-economic management and health and primary education.
Second, contrary to perception, the government has not been quite an inhibiting factor relative to the average in the world even though this does come high in the list of grievances.

Therefore, economic reforms have brought about substantial changes in the way in which we function. Third, infrastructure is a major lacuna in our growth story and clearly, the emphasis has to be on bringing about rapid development to sustain growth.
Infrastructure constraints might act as a roadblock to an expected positive economic growth outlook for Bangladesh unless measures are taken to deal with the problems. Importance should be going on implementing infrastructure projects on a priority basis. Port capacity should be expanded in line with the GDP (gross domestic product) estimates.
Without addressing major infrastructure and trade facilitation deficiencies, the economic growth of Bangladesh might have to be compromised.
Fourth, corporations also need to do something about governance standards, both in the way they operate as well as the conduct of their boards.
Fifth, there is still a lot to be done on the social front (not provided in this table since the elements have absolute numbers and not scores). Education system needs improvement and the government should continue to channel efforts here.
There have been some moves made on financial inclusion, but this needs to be expanded to ensure equitable growth. This can be related to the fact that our reforms process has been largely driven by focusing on the productive sectors i.e. industry and services, to the neglect of these sectors.
The government as well as everybody should work together with the private sector, as its flourishing means boost in revenue income and increasing expenditure capacity of the public sector for the welfare of the people. But this requires change of mindset. The factors that are standing on the way of raising the level of the country's ability to compete at the global level better are many in numbers and very much known to all concerned.
In fact, the number of negative factors, which are political, economic and societal in nature, is more than that of many other countries. There are hurdles that can be removed or effectively reduced if the authorities mean business and deploy sufficient time and money. But graft and poor governance have been identified, time and again, as major obstacles to achieving that objective.
Despite repeated calls from businesses and civil society, the country's political leadership has utterly failed to build strong national institutions to ensure transparency, accountability and fair play at all levels of national life. The failure is apparently deliberate to gain narrow political and economic advantages of the people who remain in power from time to time.
Improvement of the country's position in competitiveness ranking needs urgent reforms in areas such as public services, public and financial sectors, corporate governance and environment and social issues.
ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION: The following should be implemented so that Bangladesh becomes one of the most powerful nations in terms of global competitiveness index:
l The government should be honest and sincere in its plans and policies.
l Development of infrastructure.
l Establishment of good governance, which refers to transparency, accountability, and the rule of law to prevent crimes and corruption and ensure distributive justice for progress, towards sustainable development.
l Public policies should support the regional innovations during the initial stages when they are getting established, thus generating structures of governance linking the academia, companies, and governments.
l Making the best possible framework for promoting local people's participation in governance and development process as well as for articulation of local needs and mobilisation of local resources.
l Selective interventions for promotion of these structures are needed because the enterprise-academia-government relationships are not generated spontaneously.
l The local governments must be firmly involved in the programmes and policy formulations of the central government.
l The area where policies are developed must be separated from the area where they are executed (politicians are not necessarily good managers).
l The management of the centre must be carried out by professional management personnel in professional management structures. The managers must be trained in business administration (not in research or teaching-professors are not necessarily good managers).
l People in Bangladesh may be encouraged to develop appropriate technologies that are indigenous in nature. Research should be carried out to further develop and improve these technologies.
l A systemic approach must be promoted from the political environment to improve communication among all the associates. The quality policies, the information system, and sharing strategic plans among the actors are some of the instruments that can be employed to achieve this goal,
l Mechanisms to evaluate the impacts of the centre and a clear commitment with management that defines short-, medium- and long-term goals in accordance with the goals of the regional and national governments must be established.
l The innovation environment must generate ties with local companies in general and with the social actors where the centre is located.
l The regional centres of innovation are dynamic structures where generation of ties with other actors of national innovation system must be promoted.
l Human resource development must be enlightened. Development of communication skill and a constructive attitude is essential.
l The creation of public-private alliances must be encouraged,
l Strategic leadership at the regional and local levels is necessary.
l Strengthening of linkages among research, extension, technology and education.
Finally, to be successful in business today when capital, goods, talents and knowledge move quickly around the world, we need to treat global markets as a single market, building global value chains that integrate the world's best resources.
It is particularly important to generate innovative environment. It is also essential that the government become involved as a catalyst for interaction among stakeholders, particularly with regard to the mechanisms that lead to a closer relationship between academia and businesses, promotion of the best intellectual property management practices at universities and technical institutes, and actions that create good governance.
It cannot be said that the economic arena of sustainable development is really very advanced in comparison to outcomes found in this arena in developed countries.
The major barriers to improving economic arena appear to be in economic, social and cultural norms and the influence of the norms on them.
The World Economic Forum has listed Bangladesh among the factor-driven economies as per its Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) 2013. This type of economies competes primarily relying on unskilled labour and natural resources. They do not have well-functioning institutions, well-developed infrastructures, stable macroeconomic environment and healthy workforce with basic education.
Our low competitiveness level remains almost unchanged for the same GCI score at 3.7 out of 10 in 2006 and 2013. We will have to cross the stage of efficiency-driven and other two stages in-between to peak at the innovation-driven economy.
At a broader level, a rank of 71 calls for some serious efforts to be put in since we need to leverage the high economic growth that we have attained to become more competitive or else we will lose out to other nations when it comes to attracting investment.
We should refrain from getting into a denial mode and bring about improvement where it is necessary. In fact, on the positive side, we can take pride in remaining attractive notwithstanding these failings. The present government has it in its veins to do so, and one does hope to see this rank improve substantially in the next three to four years.
The writer is Inspector of Colleges, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP).
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