Rising per capita income: We could get more
Mohammad Ali Sattar | Sunday, 22 June 2008
It was heartening to note that our per capita income of US$ 440 has increased to US$ 599. This has happened in just four years time. When we all are busy debating the 'corruption' in our country, the satisfying progress over the last fiscal year alone is, indeed, soothing. We have something positive to talk about, and may be, to work on. To reach the level of countries in the middle income bracket, our per capita income would need to rise to US$750. Now it appears possible. If we could get to $599, we can always get to that mark.
The interesting and also confusing part of the story is, despite the messy situation in almost every sector we could still emerge with something positive. It is a gloomy picture in sectors like agriculture, industry, service and construction -- all there sectors have experienced fall in growth. Our trade deficit over the last ten months was $5200 million. This was mainly due to the political unrest, massive corruption and repeated natural disasters. The high prices of industrial raw materials affects adversely the production line. The cost of the finished products comes out high that impedes real growth.
During the first ten months of the current fiscal, the export figure was $11,365 million while the import was $16,560 million. There's always a hiatus between the two. The gap exists.
Nevertheless the gross national income has risen. This was due to high growth of remittances sent by our hard working wage earners. We take pride in saying that the remittance money contributes to the growth of per capita national income. At the same breath, we should not be so ecstatic that we tend to forget the poor performance of our mainstream economy. Rather, it is a matter of concern.
Will Bangladesh finally count on only remittances for calculating the growth of its economy? That certainly would be a dangerous option because our manpower sector is also inflicted with seasonal rots. We have seen the decline of our manpower market in the West Asia. There have been serious crises with regards to finding the right principal abroad. We have complaints galore about the workers being cheated by the agents from both the countries -- sending and receiving -- our workers being exploited by the employers, wages being not paid regularly, living conditions also being below the promised conditions in the contract, and many more.
We also have reports of our workers sometimes getting involved in serious crimes. Of late, something like that happened in Bahrain. As a result, the government of that country stopped recruiting Bangladeshi workers. Malaysia put an embargo on our workers for a long period opening up only last year but still lots remain to be done.
And then we have the Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Ltd (BOESL) - a government organisation responsible to recruit the right people for the right principal.
There too, things are not moving at the expected speed and with the needed efficiency. This government body needs more commitment towards contributing to the national exchequer.
Furthermore, the government, through all its wings, needs to explore new markets for our work force. We have proven that we have a strong and efficient manpower base. The government should keep its mind and eyes wide open to the realities of the world market. There would be ups and downs in this sector as this will need continuous monitoring and exploration of markets. We need to spread our wings to Europe and beyond. If we wish to see our manpower revenue as one of the main sources of national income, we should have a larger and better people to handle the industry. This should also include the people stationed outside Dhaka -- that is, our missions in those countries. They have a big responsibility to shoulder. They should work in exploring, marketing, implementing the projects and keep monitoring the progress of work.
But we are having different reports about them.
While we can rejoice for the current success story, we still have a long way to go before we can really have the NRB's contributing substantially to the growth of the country's economy. Still, agriculture and manufacturing industry remains the pillar of our economy; these should always get the foremost priority.
................................................
The writer is a broadcaster and a journalist
The interesting and also confusing part of the story is, despite the messy situation in almost every sector we could still emerge with something positive. It is a gloomy picture in sectors like agriculture, industry, service and construction -- all there sectors have experienced fall in growth. Our trade deficit over the last ten months was $5200 million. This was mainly due to the political unrest, massive corruption and repeated natural disasters. The high prices of industrial raw materials affects adversely the production line. The cost of the finished products comes out high that impedes real growth.
During the first ten months of the current fiscal, the export figure was $11,365 million while the import was $16,560 million. There's always a hiatus between the two. The gap exists.
Nevertheless the gross national income has risen. This was due to high growth of remittances sent by our hard working wage earners. We take pride in saying that the remittance money contributes to the growth of per capita national income. At the same breath, we should not be so ecstatic that we tend to forget the poor performance of our mainstream economy. Rather, it is a matter of concern.
Will Bangladesh finally count on only remittances for calculating the growth of its economy? That certainly would be a dangerous option because our manpower sector is also inflicted with seasonal rots. We have seen the decline of our manpower market in the West Asia. There have been serious crises with regards to finding the right principal abroad. We have complaints galore about the workers being cheated by the agents from both the countries -- sending and receiving -- our workers being exploited by the employers, wages being not paid regularly, living conditions also being below the promised conditions in the contract, and many more.
We also have reports of our workers sometimes getting involved in serious crimes. Of late, something like that happened in Bahrain. As a result, the government of that country stopped recruiting Bangladeshi workers. Malaysia put an embargo on our workers for a long period opening up only last year but still lots remain to be done.
And then we have the Bangladesh Overseas Employment Services Ltd (BOESL) - a government organisation responsible to recruit the right people for the right principal.
There too, things are not moving at the expected speed and with the needed efficiency. This government body needs more commitment towards contributing to the national exchequer.
Furthermore, the government, through all its wings, needs to explore new markets for our work force. We have proven that we have a strong and efficient manpower base. The government should keep its mind and eyes wide open to the realities of the world market. There would be ups and downs in this sector as this will need continuous monitoring and exploration of markets. We need to spread our wings to Europe and beyond. If we wish to see our manpower revenue as one of the main sources of national income, we should have a larger and better people to handle the industry. This should also include the people stationed outside Dhaka -- that is, our missions in those countries. They have a big responsibility to shoulder. They should work in exploring, marketing, implementing the projects and keep monitoring the progress of work.
But we are having different reports about them.
While we can rejoice for the current success story, we still have a long way to go before we can really have the NRB's contributing substantially to the growth of the country's economy. Still, agriculture and manufacturing industry remains the pillar of our economy; these should always get the foremost priority.
................................................
The writer is a broadcaster and a journalist