Technology for change

Nobel Laureate economist Robert Solow pointed out quite sometime ago that the real engine of economic growth is science and technology. Economists cannot fail to note that it is science and technology that has acted as an instrument of change for all countries. Technology can assist in increasing the productive efficiently and unleash unprecedented development in economic spheres.
Counties like Germany and Japan are two mentionable examples in this regard. Few countries have excelled in science and technology as Germany. From physics and chemistry to cars and consumer products, Germany is a world leader in innovation, gifted with universities and research institutes alongside major engineering, IT and manufacturing industries. For most of the 20th century, Germany had more Nobel Prizes in the sciences than any other nation, and today the output of German scientific research consistently ranks among the world's best. Japan is also one of the countries which invests immensely in technology. We can understand the magnitude of Japan's investment in technology if we look at Japanese electronics companies. Japan is well known for its electronics industry throughout the world, and Japanese electronic products account for a large share in the world market.  Japan is also one of the leading nations in the fields of scientific and medical research with the world's third largest budget for research and development at $130 billion and over 677,731 researchers.
It must be pointed out that the improvement of the economy of a country depends on a number of factors including the vision to foresee things ahead of time -- political stability, foreign investment, proper tax and vat collection, financial reforms in the banking and administrative sectors facilitating the operation of trade and commerce, increasing capacity building in science and technology. Among these all, technology can contribute most to products and processes.
Unfortunately, although technology is a key prerequisite for the improvement of the economy, Bangladesh is pathetically lagging behind. The reason is not far to seek; it is the lack of capital.
Universities all over the world have been recognised as generators of new thoughts and ideas. In fact, most of the recent science and technology innovations have come from the university labs. For this to happen, scientific research will have to be undertaken as a regular activity of the university education. Our universities and technical institutions have been largely reduced to teaching institutions.
As there is lack of capital, business sector in our country has narrowed its vision. They know that they cannot compete with others in terms of technological advancement. On the other hand, labour supply is much higher than the labour demand. As a consequence, labour is very cheap. Although this cheap manpower is a comparative advantage for Bangladesh, we are still far from making the best use of it.
The situation was more or less the same with China a few decades ago. Cheap labour was also the comparative advantage for Chinese companies. But the situation started to change with considerable raise in the wage structure as a result of the rise in the standard of living. So, the Chinese companies became more prone to invest in capital intensive industries rather than on labour intensive ones. The case may become true for Bangladesh in the future. Although it may take years, we should prepare from now. If we can manage to bring technological advancement in our business sector, then technology along with cheap labour can bring a phenomenal change.
As Bangladesh is the most densely populated country, dependence on agriculture for development is not the right course for economic growth. There has to be a realisation that the East Asian model of rapid development by manufacturing and selling consumer goods to Western nations is not the cure to the myriad problems Bangladesh is faced with. It will make the rich richer, but leave the poor where they are. The path to remedy is investment in science and
technology.
The writer is a student, department of Accounting and Information Systems
in the University of Dhaka.
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