World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu yesterday said Bangladesh needs to ensure governance in business for building better entrepreneurship that will lead to job creation, which is much needed for sustainable economic growth.
“Fostering ethos and ensuing good governance in business are essentials for better entrepreneurship. This will, eventually, give impetus to growth,” he said while delivering a public lecture in Dhaka yesterday.
Basu who is in the city at the invitation of the Bangladesh Bank said the government should create good business atmosphere for flourishing private sector, which is critical for generating employment.
In reply to a question on the government target of achieving 8% economic growth by 2020 in line with its seventh five-year plan, Basu said, “Bangladesh can achieve the targeted growth within a few years if investment growth is raised from existing 33% to 35%.”
“The countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong have achieved 6% to 9% growth by increasing 35% to 40% investment growth,” he said.
He said Bangladesh is going to add young people to its labour force over the next 10 years. “This is an asset that needs to be utilised by creating employment opportunities.”
Putting importance on quality education, the Cornell University professor of economics said: “Better education breeds better entrepreneurship.”
He appreciated that Bangladesh has done well in education and agriculture sectors so far. “But what is needed is to improve quality of education for the betterment of creating good entrepreneurs and sustainable development as well.”
Expressing grave concern over rising inequality across the globe, he said the gap between the rich and the poor is widening not only in Bangladesh but also all over the world. To reduce this inequity, he recommended boosting tax collection and making efforts in diverting the money from the rich to the poor.
“Developing human capital is another important area which the country needs to take into account,” he said.
He added that Bangladesh received a lot of prescriptions from the World Bank, IMF, USA and England. “But there are some countries that do not have a very high human capital faced problems to decide whether to take those prescriptions. In this case, Bangladesh is very fortunate to choose best advices as it has well-educated and professionally skilled people.”
The chief economist suggested launching common currency in the region as it offers many advantages and benefits in trade.