Bangladesh now in top 100!

It is a laudable achievement that Bangladesh has moved up seven points to become part of the exclusive top 100 countries ranked on global competitiveness. According to the World Economic Forum's Competitiveness Report 2017-18, the country has made significant gains in the areas of macroeconomic environment as well as health and primary education that allowed for this impressive growth. We have done well in improving institutions but still trail behind other South Asian nations except Pakistan.

Problem areas remain, particularly infrastructure, and the slow movement in decision-making i.e. bureaucracy that has been cited as the third biggest problem while corruption is perceived to be a major hurdle for business. For the country to do much better, we will have to make significant efforts to improve the quality of our educated workforce and change the way we work. Indeed, "poor work ethic has emerged as a new form of constraint. Lack of dedication, hard work and commitment among a large section of the new entrants to the young labour force put constraints on business to grow."

As pointed out in the survey, infrastructure bottlenecks range from the highly congested seaport affecting timely shipments, unreliable power for industry and the need for better financial governance to check the rise of classified loans. The banking sector needs to be protected from the failure to check scams that remain a major problem in allowing access to finance by mainstream business as opposed to select clientele.

We have moved up seven steps, but it is possible to do much better. Reforms need to be undertaken at policy level that will lead to an "efficiency-driven" economy that is, where productivity is the driving force which may only come through better human resources.