While Bangladesh economy is on steady growth and the country is succeeding in avoiding an economic catastrophe due to COVID, Ukraine war and Western nation’s sanctions on Russia, a well-organized band of anti-Bangladesh elements are continuously spreading vile propaganda with the agenda of misleading people – particularly policymakers in the West. Meanwhile, Bangladesh has already become a very important nation due to geopolitical factors. Although just before fifteen year where Bangladesh’s political and economic significance was mere “less important” to the international community, compared to its South Asian neighbors, because of magnanimous leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh in already considered as a new ‘Asian Tiger’ or Economic Star by most of the nations in the world. In its recent report, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a US-based business consultancy firm said, “Bangladesh is on its way to move towards the club of trillion-dollar economy by 2040.
According to economic pundits, in terms of economy, the previous decade has been very significant for Bangladesh as the country is already on the way to graduation from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) category by 2026. Bangladesh attained progress from Low-Income to Lower-Middle-Income Country (LMIC) in 2015 and now also aspires to become an Upper-Middle-Income Country by 2031.
During 2016-2021, Bangladesh made an average GDP growth at a very consistent level of 6.4 percent, while most of its South Asian neighbors were struggling to manage or turn over their negative growth rates. In the report of Boston Consulting Group, Bangladesh is proving itself as the Fastest-Growing Economy than all of its major peers including Vietnam, India and Philippines, where the country’s booming readymade garment sector played a vital role. Because of Sheikh Hasina’s effective policies, Bangladesh’s industrial sector did not face any damage due to COVID lockdown.
Boston Consulting Group identifies a growing consumption sector, young workforce generation, resilient economy and rising digital adaption are empowering an already booming economic showdown of Bangladesh. Added to this, huge participation in the gig economy, increased government expenditure and a fast-growing private sector have enabled the economy to spread out its investment and output insurance. The consumer market has globally become the ninth-largest driven by surging affluent and middle class society. The digital movement has enabled a faster growing connectivity in a domestic level concurrent with accelerated digital transactions worth over US$ 3.5 billion in 2022. More importantly, the only way of this fast-track economic pursuit has been achieved by the solid optimism provided by the Bangladeshi citizens who continuously believe that their next generation would be much better off than them.
Economists said, for Bangladesh, this sheer optimism is nothing new. As a nation of rebels and war-fighters, this solid optimism has made the country’s people immune to any setbacks. BCG attributes this attitude as an essential characteristic of the emerging champions as they possess a challenger mindset which demonstrates in their willingness to take out opportunities in challenging economic environments. Adopting this bold attitude, local business firms are growing fast in the national market as well as stepping their foot into the foreign markets.
Alongside expanding business operations country-wide, Bangladeshi companies also proclaim to produce society goods which posits larger social impact on a micro-level. BRAC, one of the leading development organizations in the world, operates as a social ecosystem comprising its social development programs, education entrepreneurship, banking solutions etc. Nogod, bKash, Pathao all of the local companies are providing not only useful services for the society but also helping stream the service-sector operations.
Now, for the sake of smooth economic prosperity of Bangladesh and encouraging foreign investors in choosing the country as a prime destination of investments, political stability is most essential. Unfortunately for the past few months, pro-Islamist and jihadist forces have formed a vicious conglomerate with the agenda of obstructing the country’s progress and prosperities and turning Bangladesh into another Afghanistan by spreading poisonous seeds of religious extremism, jihadist madness and treacherous agendas. Such evil actions need to be effectively countered by every patriotic citizen of the country.
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