Professor Gustav F. Papanek

I may have left the impression with some of you that I am pessimistic. I am extremely optimistic about what can be done and what can be achieved quite readily here. I want to tell you one story which will remind you of one fact. When the army repression took place here, I called Henry Kissinger, to say to him, that I thought Pakistan as it was constituted was finished. That there was no way after the repression, to put the country back together again. That East Pakistan would be an independent state. And it was therefore in the interest of United States, the long term interests, to support the independence movement rather than to support Pakistan. This initiative totally failed because at that time they were engaged in the openings in China, and Pakistan was fruitful to that opening. But what was interesting to me was the question that seemed to be preoccupied at the state department at that time. They said that if East Pakistan becomes independent, it's going to be a world's basket case. And it will be forever, the ward of the world because it cannot stand on its own. It does not even have the economic bases, or the political bases to be a successful independent state. People, who were analysts in the state department, raised that question; they asked me, what is your reason for thinking this is a viable state. Now they would've been surprised if they had seen the development, particularly the development in the garments industry. I think lots of things are possible.
But one thing I want to remind you of is that 40 years after India's independence, Indians and the world community were convinced that India was condemned to the Hindu rate of growth. That was a universal wisdom that India would never grow faster than 4%. That was the Hindu rate of growth, it was pre ordained, by the nature of society. How wrong can you be! Moreover, it's as recently as 11 years ago that on a per-capita basis, India was receiving less foreign private investment than Bangladesh is receiving now. So people who say that, "well, we are convinced to being considered not to be a good place to invest". I just want to say that India has grown from 4 billion to 40 billion in a short period of time, from being worse off per-capita than Bangladesh is now to be significantly better off.
I have no doubt that you can reach 10 billion dollar of foreign private investment or probably more. I think it's entirely possible, I have many stories of pessimists like that who have been proved wrong. There's nothing inherent about Bangladesh that prevents you from developing at 10% and getting the necessary foreign investment to achieve that goal. I think it's entirely feasible and feasible in the short term, in a couple of years.
(The report was compiled by Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh)