In keeping with our economic ambitions, Bangladesh plans to build 100 new economic zones in the Narayanganj district. The plan is for these new economic zones to not only support the economy of the country, but to support green developments in keeping with our ambitions of becoming a role model of sustainable development.
However, while new economic zones are almost always a surefire way of adding to the nation's GDP, they will not mean much unless they translate directly into prosperity for the people, especially those within the locality of these zones. As such, simply building economic zones is not enough.
The government will need to build such hubs with the express intent of generating employment opportunities for locals at the very core of such endeavours.
Economic zones aim to diversify the industrial sector of the country. To effectively run these hubs, the government will need a plethora of people working directly in production -- not to mention the need for both effective and efficient managers.
However, decades of working in either RMG or agriculture has resulted in a situation where most people might not have the skills necessary to work with these new processes. While an easy solution would be to outsource this job or spend extra money to automate the processes, that will offer no solace for the millions of unemployed people in the country.
As such, the administration needs to make sure that the economic zones are run in a way that there are employment opportunities for our populace. The relevant stakeholders should also offer technical training to offer incentives to these industries to take advantage of the coming demographic dividend.
A country is only as rich as the people living in it. If the economy continues to grow with no practical result for the people, sooner or later, it will burst.
