How do you see the economic development of Bangladesh in the last 50 years?
Bangladesh’s development since its inception has been very impressive. When Bangladesh emerged on the map, it was confronted with a lot of challenges - from natural disasters, famine to food insecurity in its infancy years.
Now after 50 years, Bangladesh has emerged as an important player in South Asia.
The country now has much better disaster management capacity and is also self-sufficient in food security.
Also on a regional scale, Bangladesh’s economy shows an excellent performance, mainly with regard to the per capita income.
With an average annual growth of about 5%, largely because of its yoUNG and working age population, Bangladesh does have the potential to continue to make rapid progress.
In fact, one can see the many mega infrastructure projects that are set up around the country which are bound to transform the country in the upcoming years.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bangladesh has even the potential to become the world's 23rd largest economy by 2050.
What is the present trade volume between Bangladesh and Germany?
Bilateral trade between the two countries amounts to over $7 billion, with Germany importing over $6 billion worth products, mostly textile.
It is Bangladesh's second largest export market after the US.
In 2020, Germany imported $6.53 billion and exported only $588 million worth of goods.
With the forecasted continued growth and prosperity in Bangladesh, we very much hope that the imports from Germany to Bangladesh will significantly rise in the next few years.
What are your observations about the business environment in the country?
Despite the growth of Bangladesh, the country is in need to secure more foreign direct investment like its regional peer countries.
A lot of observers assert that Bangladesh’s business climate highlights high regulatory uncertainty, which may prevent foreign investors from entering the country.
While choosing host countries, investors set great importance on assessing the clarity and transparency in existing policies, reliability of government officials and adherence to rules and regulations.
For instance, in the last World Bank ease of doing business ranking, Bangladesh ranked 168th out of 190 in 2020.
This seems to not be commensurate with Bangladesh’s own ambitions.
There is obviously still much space for improvement.
Corruption is another factor that is often mentioned as an obstacle to business and further development.
Other reported issues are limited scope of financing, irregularities, complex bureaucracies and problems in swiftly resolving business disputes.
On the positive side, the Government of Bangladesh is taking steps to create future markets, diversify products and exports, and increase domestic and foreign investment.
The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) has initiated powerful reforms to attract foreign investors and improve the business environment, but we still need to see more of this.
The government of Bangladesh also took valuable initiatives to set up Export Processing Zones (EPZs) in the different parts of the country, which offer many fiscal and non-fiscal incentives for investors.
How do you see the prospect of a blue economy in Bangladesh?
There are many prospects in the blue economy for Bangladesh, especially in the sectors of renewable energy, transport, logistics, light engineering, harnessing marine and mineral resources.
Bangladesh is already building international standard ships and exporting them abroad.
The country is amongst the top shipbuilding countries, which is a promising development for the shipbuilding industry in Bangladesh.
Moreover, over 90% of its external trade is seaborne.
The government is already implementing different projects such as Matarbari Deep Seaport, Patenga Container Terminal and Bay Terminal, to meet the growing demand of trade.
There are also opportunities in renewable energy by harnessing wind and/or waves and tides.
Bangladesh being a riverine country, it offers a significant comparative advantage in inland water transport.
Hence it can further benefit from a better river interconnectivity system.
Germany can offer transfer of technology, equipment and technical knowledge in many of these areas.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict has created a sense of insecurity in the world leading to price hikes of essential commodities. How can Bangladesh mitigate this situation?
The Russia-Ukraine crisis means a crisis in global oil and liquified natural gas (LNG), leading to a price hike.
A hike in prices of global commodities and uncertainties in the world economy may have an impact on Bangladesh as well.
The effects of the oil price hike would be determined by how long the sanctions last.
The cost of doing business can increase significantly due to the increase in freight rates after oil prices.
The conflict may also badly impact the prices of some basic commodities such as wheat, industrial raw materials and industrial machinery as both Russia and Ukraine are major sources for these items.
Entrepreneurs are concerned that Bangladesh will lose one of the most promising apparel export destinations such as Russia, if various Russian lenders are excluded from the SWIFT messaging system.
Do you see the impact of the Russia -Ukraine war on the Bangladesh-German bilateral trade?
Putin’s aggression is impacting the whole world order, hence as well trade relations and supply chains all over the world.
We have seen in Germany a sharp rise in inflation, most of all for energy.
I would not rule out that a loss of purchasing power in Germany would not in the medium term also lead to receding demand for goods produced in Bangladesh.
The war must stop immediately to avoid further loss of human life and negative economic impacts.
What is the number of Bangladeshis living in Germany and how do you evaluate their contribution to your country?
According to an EU funded study of UNDESA, some 14,000 Bangladeshis live in Germany (60 percent are male).
We do not have any exact information of the kind of jobs they do in Germany.
But Germany has a labour shortage in the areas of nursing, caregivers and hospital staff, which Bangladeshis can fill in the future.
Recently many students are choosing Germany as their priority destination.
