An economic analysis of the Bangladeshi economy

Geography

Bangladesh is situated in the Bay of Bengal in south Asia. It is bounded by India to the west and north; to the southeast, it borders Myanmar. It is mainly a low-lying floodplain. About one third the total area is deltaic and is prone to flooding in the rainy season from May through September. The river Ganga flows into the country from the northwest, while from the north enters the river Jamuna. Dhaka is the capital city and is near the point where those river systems meet. Hardwood forests are present in the Chittagong hill tracts. The vast river delta area is home to the dominant plains culture. The hilly areas of the northeast and southeast are occupied by much smaller tribal groups occurred mainly hilly regions of the southeast and many have strongly resisted control by the national government and the inhabitants pressure from Bangladeshis who move into and try to settle in their traditional areas.

Demography

Bangladesh is the most densely populated no island nation in the world. With approximately 135 million inhabitants living in an area of 55,812 sq miles, there are about 2,233 persons per square mile. The mainstream of the population (98 percent) is Bengali, with 3 percent belonging to tribal and other non-Bengali groups. About 83 percent of the population is Muslim, 18 percent in Hindu. Urbanization is scheduled rapidly, and it is estimated that 33% of the population entering the manual labour force in the years to come will be a part of agriculture, though many will likely find other kinds of work in rural areas. The areas around Dhaka and Comilla are the most densely populated.

Area: 147, 575 sq. km.

Cities: Capital–Dhaka . Other cities–Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi.

Terrain: Mostly flat alluvial plain, with hills around the northeast and southeast.

People 

Nationality:–Bangladeshi(s).

Religions: Muslim 84%; Hindu 17%; Christian 0.3%, Buddhist 0.7%, others 0.2%.

Languages: Bangla (official, which is also known as Bengali), English.

Education: 62%.

Work force (70.86 million): Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries–63%; production–11%;mining and quarrying–0.2%. 

. Bangladesh has a relatively young populace, where 0-25 age group comprise 65%, while 3% are 65 or older. The important tribal groups outside the Hill tract are the Santhals and the Garos. Also there are Kaibartta, Meitei, Mundas, Oraons, and Zomiethnic groups. Human trafficking has been a everlasting problem in Bangladesh and illegal immigration has been a cause of resistance with Burma and India. Health and education levels have lately improved as poverty levels have reduced. Bangladeshis mostly are rural, living on survival farming. Health problems abound, ranging from water contamination, to arsenic contamination of groundwater and diseases including malaria, typhoid. leptospirosis and dengue

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Politics

Bangladesh is a united state and parliamentary democracy. Direct elections in which all people, aged 18 or over, can vote are held once in five years for the parliament known as Jativ Sangsad. The parliamentary building is known as the Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban. Currently the parliament has 345 members together with 45 retained seats for women, elected from single-member constituencies. Bangladesh is governed by a multi-party parliamentary system of government. Other ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers are selected by the Prime Minister. The PM nominates the cabinet members from the Parliament members and one-tenths of the total members are from outside of the Parliament.

The President’s powers are by far expanded during the tenure of a government, which is held accountable for the behaviour of elections and transfer of power.The Constitution of Bangladesh was drafted in the year 1972 and has undergone fourteen amendments. The top judicial body is the Supreme Court. Justices are appointed by the President. Laws are based on English common law, but family laws such as matrimony and inheritance are based on religion, and are different for different religious communities. The two major parties in Bangladesh are the Bangladesh Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). BNP gets its support among Islamist parties like Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jot, whereas Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League aligns with leftist andsecularist parties. Student politics is considerably strong in Bangladesh, Two radical terrorist organizations, Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), were banned in February 2005.

Economy

Bangladesh is an agricultural country. About half the population is occupied in farming. The land is used mainly for  rice and jute cultivation, also, fruits and produce Although wheat production has risen in recent years; the country is mostly self-sufficient in rice production. Bangladesh’s growth of its agro industries is due to its wealthy deltaic fertile land that depends on its various seasons and several harvests. The most important barriers to expansion include frequent storms and floods, useless state-owned enterprises, inadequate port amenities, a rapidly growing work force that is lacking for agriculture, delay in exploiting energy resources (natural gas). Economic in many cases by political infighting and dishonesty at all levels of government. Development also has been choked-up by opposition from the bureaucracy and other vested interest groups. The For higher GDP growth, reserves in both public and private sectors will need to be amplified. The existing political and economic stability has greatly encouraged investment in the private region. The economic trend of foreign direct investment is very hopeful.The government is committed to market economy and has been pursuing policies for heartening private investment and eliminating non productive expenditures in the public sector. An amount of measures have been taken to emphasize the planning system and deepen reforms in the financial sector. The present government consider that waste of resources is a far greater barrier to development than insufficiency.

It is known that corruption has led to a cut in the growth of the country. Also terrorism was allowed to freeze law and order. Administration was centralized at the price of local administration institutions. The government has, therefore, certain to decentralize administration in the fastest possible time.

Production factors

Labour

Occupationally, 75 percent of the labour force, which is currently estimated at 57 million, engaged in agriculture. About 12 percent is occupied in industry. Unemployment is approximated at around 18.5 percent. Along with this is the problem of unequal allotment and fragmentation of land in the rural areas. This is expected to progress with more vigorous efforts at poverty mitigation and raising of educational and social consciousness. Slowness of the agricultural sector has therefore resulted in its growing reliance on the whims of environment and the per capita daily accessibility of food grains. As the nation steps to the 21st century, it targets accelerated economic expansion, human resource development and self-reliance. Essential to all the pains to reach those targets will be rural development, involving women in all national conduct and creating a well-educated healthy state to be able to face the problems of a fast stirring technologically advanced global society. 

Land

The performance of agricultural sector has a collision on major macroeconomic objectives such as employment generation, poverty, human resources. Meeting the nation’s food needs remain the main concern of the government and in recent years there has been considerable increase in grain production. Yet, due to calamities such as flood, loss of food and cash crops is a frequent phenomenon which disrupts the systematic progress of the nation’s entire economy.

Agricultural holdings in Bangladesh are normally small. Throughout Cooperatives the use of new machinery is gradually gaining recognition. Rice, Potato, sugarcane, Wheat, tobacco, jute and Tea are the main crops. The produce sub-sector overrules the agriculture sector contributing about 73% of total production. Fisheries, and forestry sub-sectors are 10.36%, and 7.34% respectively. 

Capital

Bangladesh has a good quality number of huge, medium and small-sized industries in equally public and private sectors based on both native and imported materials. Among them are cotton, textile, manufacturing, shipbuilding, steel, jute oil-refinery, paper, chemical, cement and leather. In recent years, Ready Made clothing Industry has substituted Jute as the main export-earner for the country. Considerable development has been attained in the last couple of years in industries such as leather, ceramic, fish, pharmaceuticals and frozen food. 

With the growth of infrastructures, many policies for service and investment and comparative benefit in labour-intensive Industries, outstanding prediction for investment exist in Bangladesh today. Foreign investors are torrential into the country in greater numbers every day, particularly in the export processing zones special amenities active at Dhaka and Chittagong. 

Economy at a glance:

GDP: purchasing power parity – $232 billion

GDP-real growth rate: 5.6%

GDP-composition by sector:

Agriculture: 30%.

Industry: 17%.

Services: 53% .

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5.8%

Labour force: 64.1 million .

Labour force-by occupation: agriculture 66%, services 24%, industry and mining 10%

Unemployment rate: 35% . 

Budget:

revenues: $4.8 billion

expenditures: $6.8 billion.. 

Industries: jute manufacturing, cotton textiles, garments, tea processing, steel, paper newsprint, cement, chemical, light manufacturing, sugar, food processing,, fertilizer. 

Industrial production growth rate: 6.3%

Agriculture-commodities: rice, jute, tea, sugarcane, wheat, potatoes, tobacco, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruit; meat, poultry, milk.

Exports: $6.65 billion

Exports-commodities: clothing, jute and jute goods, leather, frozen fish and seafood.

Imports: $8.71 billion

Imports-commodities: machinery and equipment, chemicals, iron and steel, textiles, raw cotton, crude oil and petroleum products, cement.

Currency: 1 taka (Tk) = 100 poisha.

Conclusion

Bangladesh has made noteworthy work in its economic sector since its independence in 1971. Although the economy has enhanced greatly in the 1990s, Bangladesh is still suffering in the area of foreign deal in South Asian region. Despite major barriers to growth like the inadequacy of state-owned enterprises a rapidly rising labour force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, insufficient power provisions, and sluggish execution of economic reforms, Bangladesh has made a slight headway recovering the climate for international investors and liberalizing the capital market For example, it has negotiated with international companies for oil and gas investigation, better nationwide distribution of cookery gas, and the producer of natural gas pipelines and power stations Progress on other economic reforms has been tentative because of opposition from the government, public sector unions, and other vested concerned groups. The especially harsh floods of 1998 enlarged the country’s reliance on large-scale international assist. So far the East Asian financial crisis has not had chief collision on the economy. World Bank predicts that economic growth of 6.4% for current year. Foreign support has seen a fall of 10% over the last couple months but economists see this as a positive sign for self-reliance.

Appendix

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Agriculture in Bangladesh

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