Where does today's economy stand from the 'bottomless basket'?
Economy of Bangladesh. Photo: Collected
After a few days later, the 9th of December. Victory Day for our glory. This is the month when our motherland was completely liberated. A new journey to Bengal started. How many years is it From 5 to 20 years. 1 year, two years less half-century. There is a lot of time for any country to flourish, to deteriorate, to judge good or evil.
If we judge in this way, our progress is outstanding. Pakistanis used to say, what will you eat if you become independent? Will you get your rice by exporting these three products of jute, tea and leather?
The more egregious was US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The Pakistanis said after our independence that 'Bangladesh is a bottomless basket'. What a hitch! It's been a long time.
What do you think today? Where is our economy? What is the state of food and drink? What is the state of our economy in terms of the major indicators of the economy? The strength of the economy is usually judged by the value of the currency, the amount of foreign exchange reserves. There is talk of food supply, poverty alleviation, import-export.
There are questions about the size of the budget, the size of the development budget. There are many other social indicators on which the strength of an economy is judged. After evaluating the economy of Bangladesh in this context, where do we stand after 5 years of independence?
I remember, when we went to Kolkata, India through open borders around 12, nobody wanted to take our 'Bangla money' in general. They would have given 5-4 Indian rupees if they paid Rs. Sounds overwhelming. They seemed to be poor.
Today, Indian money is available at Tk. Sometimes even more. And compare our money with Pakistani rupees? At the moment, they bought one dollar with 1-5 Pakistani rupees. We need only 3-5 bucks. We are very strong in terms of exchange value.
After independence, our foreign exchange reserves were zero. The Pakistani occupation forces vacated the reserves. Remember, Bangladesh Bank's permission is needed for $ 5-6 dollars. Many times I have gone to the Executive Director / Deputy Governor of the Bank for dollars.
I went to Bibi Debnath, who heads the 'Foreign Exchange Department'. And today? For $ 1-5 thousand dollars, for the cost of tuition dollars, for medical expenses, dollars do not have to go to Bangladesh Bank. That amount is given to commercial banks without question.
Many entrepreneurs are investing dollars abroad. Millions of Bengali tourists travel around the world today. There is no shortage of dollars. Our foreign exchange reserves amount to $ 1 billion (one billion equivalent hundred billion) dollars. How many Pakistanis? Like $ 5 billion.
In order to keep their economy running, at least three times in the last two to three years, they have been bailing out of the IMF. We used to go to the 'Aid Consortium' every year in March-April to help out before the budget.
Don't go anymore. We are not worried about what the donors will give, and what they will not give. We are building Padma Bridge in our own money by investing thousands of crores.
After independence, we had food. In the early sixties we were deficient in rice. Now Bangladesh is self-sufficient in rice. As many as four million tonnes of rice is produced in the country. Farmers often do not get paddy prices due to the abundance of supplies. Our first place in the world in the production of vegetables.
We are third-fourth in the world in fisheries production. Our success in egg-milk-meat-fruit production is also enviable. New fruits are being cultivated. Many vegetables are cultivated all year round. One of the inevitable consequences of this has been poverty alleviation.
One of the data released last year shows that our poverty rate at the time of independence was 5 percent. And in the financial year, it fell to 26.5 percent. Of these, only 5 percent were poor. There are no people in the village to eat rice paddy today.
However, as we saw in childhood, poor people crowded in houses for rice paddy, not rice. This is no longer the case. In the north, 'manga' was a daily affair. That 'manga' today is Tirohit. People get rice at two o'clock. In the winter, people had no clothes, blankets, sheets to prevent the winter.
There were no clothes all year long. How many feet were the shoes? And today it's just the opposite. In the village, the note of the money was not seen before; 4 rupees, 4 rupees note is a distant thing. Now, not in 'Bangla money', children play in 'dollar notes' in thousands of villages across the country.
How many Bengalis would earn a living abroad after independence? Today there are less than one crore, 15 million Bangladeshi working abroad. They send $ 3 billion annually to the country. Those who send are the poor farmer's son in most cases. $ 4-5 billion means about Taka one billion.
This is the amount of government money. No one knows how much comes privately. This money has kept the village market buoyant. In the villages there is now 'cash' and 'cash' in the villages. People from the north have gone abroad less.
But people of Rangpur, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Nilphamari, etc. are coming to Dhaka for the benefit of 'Bangabandhu Bridge'. Being involved in various economic activities, they are sending 'cash' regularly to the country. The countryside is gradually becoming a city with buildings and houses.
Agriculture was hand work before. Cows and goats were the lifeblood of agriculture. There was no shortage of agricultural workers. Now, farming is done on machinery. All the work of cultivating the land, sowing seeds, weeding, spreading fertilizers, harvesting, harvesting paddy, drying rice, turning rice into paddy, stuffing etc. are now done in the machinery.
Lack of agricultural workers in the village. Now the harvest is in agreement. It's all about cash. In the past, many crops, fruits and vegetables were of no value. If caught, these would have been exchanged for free. Now everything has financial value. The rural economy has been 'monetised', that is, exchange through money - not commodity instead of commodity.
What was the rate of our 'GDP' growth after independence? Long-term growth is 5-7 percent. After that it was 3-5 percent. 3 to 5 percent. 1 to 3-5 percent. We are gradually gaining higher growth. As a result, our per capita income has increased.
Of course, before this, the size of our revenue budget has increased, the size of the annual development program has increased. According to a report from Jugantor, the size of our national budget was only Tk 1 crore in the last fiscal. And in the fiscal year 20-27, the amount has increased to Tk 1 lakh 25 thousand 5 crore.
The size of the annual development program was only Tk 1 crore in that year. In the fiscal year 20-21, the amount has risen to Tk. Revenue per capita has increased as the size of the revenue budget, the size of the annual development program increase. Per capita income in Independence-North Bangladesh was only $ 120.
It increased to $ 5 in the fiscal year. In this jump, our import-export business has a lot to contribute. The major products of export are ready made garments. In such sewing factories, 1-5 lakh women workers and other workers work. Their work is also recognized for increasing per capita income.
It turns out that the import amount was only about $ 20 million in 12-12 fiscal years. Now it amounts to $ 3-5 billion. And export? The export amount was only $ 1 million at the time. Now it's up to $ 1 billion.
As a result of these advances, we are standing in the world today. Our economy is much stronger than that of Pakistanis who say 'what will you eat'.
Education rate, women education, average life expectancy, import-export, foreign exchange reserve, GDP growth rate, poverty reduction rate, per capita income - in every respect we are ahead of Pakistan today. Even on many indexes, especially the social index, we are doing much better than India.
And these are now common discussions in India and Pakistan. Speaking of words, our success is being highlighted today. Context is to talk about electricity. In the past, there was no electricity in the countryside.
And now 5 percent of the village is under electricity. During the financial year, power generation was 25,220 MW. On paper, now electricity is often unused.
Needless to say, in addition to progress and progress, several problems have arisen. Inequality is one of them. There are big problems in debt management, poor quality of government spending, degradation of education, unemployment of youth.
These problems, however, exist in all countries of the 'market economy'. International organizations are also aware of this. The duty now is to find a way to solve the problem on an urgent basis.
Edited by MD Zahirul Haque
AI News Correspondent ,USA
