Selim Raihan

Bangladesh's economic growth and development experiences over the past four and a half decades since independence in 1971 have generated a lot of interests among academics and development practitioners both from home and abroad.

Today, there are six major macroeconomic challenges for Bangladesh's economy. First, accelerating economic growth and maintaining high economic growth over the coming years will remain a big challenge.

Global climate change has become one of the dominant discourses in the scientific and public policy arena.

The long-term trend of GDP growth rate of Bangladesh shows that the country has continued to improve its rate of growth steadily over the past 46 years after independence in 1971.

The idea of globalisation and free trade has gained prominence in the world over the past three decades. Despite some limitations, globalisation and free trade regime are seen as beneficial for economic development, poverty reduction, and enhanced integration among countries.

Experience from successful industrialised countries suggests that industrialisation brings significant structural change in the economy which leads to considerable reduction in poverty, large-scale job creation and substantial improvement in the welfare of the people of a country.

What is the future economic growth prospect of Bangladesh? An analysis of Bangladesh's past economic growth in a comparative perspective can help find an answer to this question.

According to the official statistics, between 2013 and 2016-17, on average, gross domestic product (GDP) in Bangladesh grew annually by 6.6 percent, and there has been a net increase of 2.8 million new jobs on top of the 60.7 million jobs that existed in the economy in 2013.

Bangladesh has successfully met all three criteria for LDC graduation in the first review in March 2018. It is expected that Bangladesh will be able to meet the graduation criteria in the second review in 2021 and will finally graduate from the LDC status in 2024.

Remarkable growth experience and development of the East Asian countries (South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong) during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s led to the emergence of the discourse of “East Asian Development Model.”

The concept of South Asia as a region is largely inherited from the British colonial legacy, with some exceptions.

Bangladesh has made a major transition in its trade policy from a protectionist stance to a freer trade regime since the early 1990s as is reflected by the reduction in the average tariff rate from as high as 105 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2016

Despite the fact that Bangladesh made considerable progress in gross-enrolment in primary education for both genders, the country is seriously lagging behind in ensuring quality education for all. Because data for many of the targets related to Goal 4 are not available, we have studied a few available indicators which are consistent with the goal 4.

Public health expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is only 0.8 percent in Bangladesh which is one of the lowest in South Asia.

Jobless" growth is the phenomenon when an economy experiences growth without an expansion of jobs. In recent times, South Asia is considered to be the fastest growing region in the world.

The regional integration and cooperation initiative in South Asia started with the formation of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in 1985.

How should we read the SDGs as far as the priorities of the South Asian countries are concerned? In my view, SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) are at the heart of priorities mainly because of the fact that South Asian countries have national priorities aligned with these SDGs, and more importantly, these SDGs have strong linkages with other SDGs.

If we look at the growth pattern of Bangladesh from 1990, we discover two specific characteristics...

Discussions on the proposed national budget for the FY2017-18 need to be placed in the current context of six major economic challenges in Bangladesh.

How do we substantially increase the manufacturing value-added share in GDP and thus promote manufacturing led economic growth in South Asia?