Mr. Syed Akhter Mahmood Senior Program Manager, IFC/BICF
Monday, 17 May 2010
They've done it in other countries and I would be very happy to collaborate with the Government of Bangladesh if they would like to. And the important thing is to know is which dimensions are important for foreign investors because we may do well on some dimensions, those dimensions may not necessarily be important for investors particularly investors from a particular country or a particular sector. This morning, we've heard about the need to be nuanced about attracting foreign investors. Not foreign investors at large, but investors from particular sector, particular geographic locations, and each of these types of investors would emphasize certain dimensions, more than others do. So it is not only important to know how well we are doing, but whether those factors matter or not to investors.
Another thing that I wanted to introduce in relation to this is whether the Government has a good clearing house for information. Different parts of the Government, different ministries, and different agencies have their own interfaces with the private sector and surely their querying about the inside information. But does the Government as a whole have a knowledge management system, a clearing house, where they can collect the information which currently comes to the Government? As I said, there are still gaps and a lot of very useful information which the Government is not getting but the one which is coming, may be coming in a very fragmented way. The Law Ministry might know something useful, the Communication Ministry might know something useful but is there a clearing house of the Government where you have all this information in one place? The importance of dialogue has been emphasized whether you go back to some of the earlier models or not, but surely we know, starting from the early experience of Korea and Taiwan, two recent examples in Latin America where many countries set up what they call competition or competitiveness councils or the currently existing business forums in countries such as Vietnam. I think the importance of Government and private sector dialogue in a very systematic manner, where you have multiple actors on the Government side and multiple actors on the private sector side, I'll emphasize that because Bangladesh does have a tradition of dialogue between individual chambers and individual ministries whereas a lot of issues are inter-ministerial in nature. So we need a platform where there are these inter-ministerial representations and there is a diversity of views from the private sector side. As an economy matures, there will be more and more diversity of opinions within the private sector. For example, the garments industry and the textile industry of Bangladesh has often differed on important issues. It's good to have them across the table together, so that these issues can be thrashed up. The second point is the importance of listening to as many people as possible. Gather your knowledge going beyond your familiar zone. If you are the Government, it is important for you to go out of the Government spectrum to acquire knowledge and information from the private sector and other actors. If you are in Bangladesh, it's important to go beyond Bangladesh and gather global knowledge.
Coming back to the Singaporean theme of thinking again, we need to have systems where we have continuous feedback. The IFC initiated, and I will give you just one or two examples of that, instruments to get these feedbacks. We've started this quarterly business confidence survey, so that every quarter you can read the pulse of the business sector, I think the Executive Chairman did allude to that survey this morning, when he suggested that business confidence is increasing. The important thing is to have these feedbacks on a frequent basis. Not every two years or every one year, but on a regular basis. We are thinking of instituting score cards of government agencies whenever we have an agreement; and we have done two pilots, one is for the EPZ authorities and the EPB. This is where clients of the organization can provide feedback on the performance of the organization.
Finally on "image building", the World Bank group has an indicator which they call the "Doing Business Indicator", where our current position is about 110, and people have said that it doesn't matter whether you are 110 or 100, people don't expect you to be in the top 30 in one go. The question is, are we moving? Is there any movement? So for a country which has moved from 140 to 130 last year, would be seen more favorably over those who have remained at 100 for the last 5 years. 100 is better than 140, but the movement is better than just staying where you are. Thank you.
Another thing that I wanted to introduce in relation to this is whether the Government has a good clearing house for information. Different parts of the Government, different ministries, and different agencies have their own interfaces with the private sector and surely their querying about the inside information. But does the Government as a whole have a knowledge management system, a clearing house, where they can collect the information which currently comes to the Government? As I said, there are still gaps and a lot of very useful information which the Government is not getting but the one which is coming, may be coming in a very fragmented way. The Law Ministry might know something useful, the Communication Ministry might know something useful but is there a clearing house of the Government where you have all this information in one place? The importance of dialogue has been emphasized whether you go back to some of the earlier models or not, but surely we know, starting from the early experience of Korea and Taiwan, two recent examples in Latin America where many countries set up what they call competition or competitiveness councils or the currently existing business forums in countries such as Vietnam. I think the importance of Government and private sector dialogue in a very systematic manner, where you have multiple actors on the Government side and multiple actors on the private sector side, I'll emphasize that because Bangladesh does have a tradition of dialogue between individual chambers and individual ministries whereas a lot of issues are inter-ministerial in nature. So we need a platform where there are these inter-ministerial representations and there is a diversity of views from the private sector side. As an economy matures, there will be more and more diversity of opinions within the private sector. For example, the garments industry and the textile industry of Bangladesh has often differed on important issues. It's good to have them across the table together, so that these issues can be thrashed up. The second point is the importance of listening to as many people as possible. Gather your knowledge going beyond your familiar zone. If you are the Government, it is important for you to go out of the Government spectrum to acquire knowledge and information from the private sector and other actors. If you are in Bangladesh, it's important to go beyond Bangladesh and gather global knowledge.
Coming back to the Singaporean theme of thinking again, we need to have systems where we have continuous feedback. The IFC initiated, and I will give you just one or two examples of that, instruments to get these feedbacks. We've started this quarterly business confidence survey, so that every quarter you can read the pulse of the business sector, I think the Executive Chairman did allude to that survey this morning, when he suggested that business confidence is increasing. The important thing is to have these feedbacks on a frequent basis. Not every two years or every one year, but on a regular basis. We are thinking of instituting score cards of government agencies whenever we have an agreement; and we have done two pilots, one is for the EPZ authorities and the EPB. This is where clients of the organization can provide feedback on the performance of the organization.
Finally on "image building", the World Bank group has an indicator which they call the "Doing Business Indicator", where our current position is about 110, and people have said that it doesn't matter whether you are 110 or 100, people don't expect you to be in the top 30 in one go. The question is, are we moving? Is there any movement? So for a country which has moved from 140 to 130 last year, would be seen more favorably over those who have remained at 100 for the last 5 years. 100 is better than 140, but the movement is better than just staying where you are. Thank you.