Massive reforms and openness in economic policies helped Vietnam to come to the present stage of development whereas Bangladesh is still lagging behind in these areas and has failed to keep pace with Vietnam’s development, say leading economists, policy makers and business leaders.
According to them, Vietnam was more or less similar to Bangladesh during the 1990s in terms of export and attracting foreign investment. For instance, the export of Bangladesh and Vietnam was then hovering around $5 billion, but last year the figure stood at nearly $38.75billion for Bangladesh and for Vietnam it crossed $280 billion. Vietnam has now achieved an enviable position in both export and foreign investment indicators — far ahead of Bangladesh. They attribute Vietnam’s success to its government’s export-friendly policy, liberal stance on attracting foreign investment, and joining forces with regional and global economic powers. Bangladesh can also emulate Vietnam’s development experiences by adopting their policies, including higher investment on innovation and technology, research and skill development.
Compared to the 13 percent of GDP invested by Vietnam on human resource development, Bangladesh spends only 1.9 per cent on education, 0.7 per cent on health and 1.0 per cent on social protection totalling a mere 3.6 per cent on human development. As a result, Vietnam could make a big difference within 30 years because of their openness in economic and political policies. The country did not depend on just one sector, rather utilized several sectors. But Bangladesh’s 80 per cent export depends on one sector – garments. Now almost 40 percent of Vietnam’s total export comes from electronics while for Bangladesh the corresponding share has remained below 1 per cent.
The story about Samsung’s presence in Vietnam is particularly a lesson for us. The company had wanted to invest big amounts in Bangladesh. But we could not accommodate them. Reiterating this, eminent economist Prof. Rehman Sobhan told a webinar on Friday that YoungOne, a Korean company, had held discussions to bring Samsung to Bangladesh, but their efforts failed. Samsung then chose Vietnam, and this move brought in a revolution to that country’s electronic industry.
To diversify our economy and make our manufacturing sector globally competitive, we would do well to study what Vietnam has done and learn from those. We also need to be active to attract foreign investment.
