Creating enough jobs, improving investment climate and ensuring financial stability would be major challenges for Bangladesh to meet her post-LDC (least developing country) requirements, opined economists and businesses.
For a sustainable transition to the developing country status, the country must seriously focus on ICT (information and communication technology) sector, as the apparel sector's advantage would expand for at least two decades, they said.
At the same time, they suggested enhancing intra-regional trade by taking advantage of a huge consumer base of 1.7 billion people in South Asia.
The observations and suggestions were made at an institutional dialogue, titled "Policy framework for post-LDC graduation of Bangladesh: business perspective", at a city hotel on Monday.
Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, a German foundation, jointly organised the dialogue.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed was present in the programme as the chief guest.
Presenting a keynote paper on the topic, former governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB) Dr Atiur Rahman said the country needs to create 1.6 million jobs annually until 2020, which public sector cannot create alone.
"Private sector is the solution. So, we should create a congenial atmosphere here, especially for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises)."
In this regard, he cited the example of how 0.3 million agents create around 0.9 million jobs in the remote areas.
Terming ICT sector a new game-changer in the coming years, the commerce minister said the economy largely depends on RMG industry, and its advantage can continue for the next two decades.
Senior Research Fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Nazneen Ahmed emphasised training and skill development to utilise the advantage of demographic dividend of the country properly.
- Courtesy: The Financial Express /Sep 17, 2018
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