THE World Bank (WB) reports on doing business index-2016 as carried out by national dailies on Thursday showing Bangladesh has lost two vital points to suggest an overall degradation of business environment has come as a wake up call to the nation to seriously work to reverse the situation. It is very hard for any sensible person to witness the country rating going down at the bottom of 189 countries when Bangladesh is very much visible in global market by its success in producing and exporting apparels to USA, EU and other global markets. The annual WB reports posted Bangladesh at 174 position in doing business rating and in South Asia context it stands only above Afghanistan and below all others to make a gloomy projection of the country which is not compatible to its success in global market.
Bhutan topped the ranking in the region as a peaceful nation. Bangladesh’s competitors like India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia have all improved in their rankings. Even Myanmar and Mauritania moved ahead along with war-torn Iraq and Yemen from their position below Bangladesh. It raised the question as to why Bangladesh is slipping when its private sector is highly dynamic and capable to take challenge from competitors. The failure invariably goes to the leadership; which are otherwise busy with political fights overlooking the need to give business the priority and improving its environment. The rating is therefore sinking. As per WB reports Bangladesh’s garment exports doubled from 1995 to 2013 when the share of its manufacturing sector to total economy reached above 90 percent as against 26 percent in other least developed countries. It is totally unacceptable now to see that we are about to lose the success stories when many others are steadily doing well despite severe limitations in which they are working.
The new rating will further put the negative signals. As it appears Bangladesh has also progress in reducing corporate taxes, making starting business easier by automating the registration process and reducing time to obtain trading licenses. It has also fully automated and computerized customs management at ports and borders; which are important denominators to business index. But infrastructure bottleneck and lack of peaceful environment remained the biggest challenge to business.
The government is being misled to believe that spending big money on big projects itself is a big success for development.
As it appears the new report may further damage the country case and it requires that Bangladesh must reorganize its position before it hurts the nation at its worst.
