With Bangladesh's graduation from a least developed country (LDC) imminent, and thereby the country losing many of the benefits afforded to LDCs, there is an immediate need for fresh strategies to remain competitive. To that end, diversifying our export basket and reducing our over-reliance on the RMG sector, which routinely is responsible for over 80% of our export earnings, has been proposed for years now, including by this newspaper, which since its inception has continued editorializing on the issue.
Unfortunately, we are no closer to reducing the dependency on the RMG sector today as we were a decade ago. Business experts at a recent seminar in the capital outlined numerous reasons for this failure, most prominent of which were a shortage of capital, inadequate policy support, trailing infrastructure, and a failure to attract desired foreign direct investment (FDI).
While it is a step in the right direction to identify the issues holding our exports back, it is indeed a shame that we continue to be bogged down by so many familiar issues that, despite our progress over the past dozen or so years, we are yet to fix.
By now, we should have seen a significant uptick in FDI with all of the investment made. However, if we lack the appropriate policy support and infrastructure, any investment will quickly dry up, and investors both home and abroad will not be encouraged to continue long-term investment plans.
We must prioritize policy support to our businesses, and as seen from Bangladesh ranking 105th in the global competitiveness index in 2019, we are trailing far behind our neighbours and competitors.
The authorities concerned would do well to pay heed to these experts and their recommendations, and prioritize these lacking areas. Failure to do so would leave us in a precarious position, where any shocks to the RMG industry could prove to be catastrophic.