WASHINGTON, 10 November 2008: Since1990s, Bangladesh’s economic growth has been phenomenal. The country has made convincing progress with economic and human development following independence in 1971.
Sadiq Ahmed, Acting Chief Economist for World Bank’s South Asia region said Bangladesh could join the ranks of middle-income countries (MICs) within a decade (by 2016) or soon after.
In his book, “Transforming Bangladesh into a Middle Income Economy,” Ahmed proposed “in order to sustain this high growth, however, Bangladesh needs to diversify the economy and improve the environment for foreign direct investment.”
He also pointed out that Bangladesh’s impressive record of economic growth and social development has been achieved despite apparent weak governance. Bangladesh often ranks near the bottom in cross-country comparisons relating to governance.
Manzoor Hassan, Director at the Centre for Governance Studies, BRAC University in Dhaka, believes better governance is essential to achieve higher economic growth:
– If we could increase the level of political accountability in Bangladesh, then the situation could dramatically change and instead of 5 to 6 per cent average growth rate, we could easily reach a growth rate of 8 to 9 per cent.
According to Ahmed, Bangladesh has made good progress in improving the transparency and competitiveness in public procurement, including the new Public Procurement Act was made effective from January 31, 2008:
– With greater awareness, all public procuring entities have started following this law including the complaint redress mechanism by independent review panels, publication of bid notices and contract award on web sites.
Læs hele artiklen: www.worldbank.org
