Establishment of more special economic zones (SEZs) and updating our trade policy to make it more export-friendly are crucial to the economic development of the country.
Lack of private investment and a very narrow export basket were identified as two crucial factors that are limiting economic growth at a recent meeting of prominent economists. Establishment of SEZs can play a large role in attracting investment, especially from foreign sources such as Japan, China and Korea.
This is essential as lack of infrastructure is currently a major barrier to increasing exports from non-RMG sectors. To succeed, investment in infrastructure needs to be combined with reform of economic and trade policy.
Experts point out that intermediate goods, as opposed to end consumer products such as RMG, are a huge source of export growth in many developing countries. However, our economic policy, for example with regards to tax incentives, is currently biased towards the RMG sector while there is little to no initiative to encourage production of intermediate goods.
Bangladesh is currently in a critical stage of economic development and it is essential that the GDP growth rate is able to cross 7% in order to achieve middle-income status. In order to do that we need to be able to replicate the success of the RMG sector in other industrial sectors as well.
Strategic investment in SEZs and reforming economic and trade policy to diversify our export basket is imperative to achieving this goal.
