Natural resources and workers at home and abroad bear the cost of development, said speakers at a webinar yesterday.

"By 2041, Bangladesh may well become a high-income country by the measure of GDP," said Iftekhar Iqbal, professor at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. "The gravest challenge is, however, expected from diminishing natural capital, especially water."

He opined that Bangladesh will become a high-income country by exhausting its natural resources. But there is no indication that there will be financial regularities, institutionalisation of democracy, independent judiciary, social justice and a knowledge society.

The use of fertiliser per hectare has doubled in the past decade and most of it ends up polluting water, said Dr Golam Rabbani, head of Climate Bridge Fund Secretariat at Brac.

Iqbal said food grain import has been steadily increasing, reflecting the challenges of food production.

"Scientific decision making is not very strong when it comes to environmental resource management," he added.

Fahmida Khatun, executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, which organised the webinar, said power has always affected environmental decisions. "The government could not move the tanneries out of the city because of their [the tanners'] clout. The forest department has neither the efficiency nor the power to stop encroachment. If we are subsidising resources which are scarce there will be a tendency to overconsume. Subsidies lead to overconsumption."

Rizwanul Islam, former special adviser, Employment Sector, International Labour Office, Geneva, pointed out that Bangladesh's trade account is always in the negative, but when remittances is taken into account, the balance of accounts becomes positive.

The labour productivity is a major driver of development as opposed to the quantity of labour, he said, adding, "Surplus labour has not been absorbed and the employment growth rate has declined."

Khondoker Golam Moazzem, research director at CPD, pointed out that although the labour productivity has increased over time, the year-wise growth is contingent upon the year in question.