Explore more of Asia
Bangladeshi exporters, especially entrepreneurs in garment manufacturing, need to explore more Asian markets alongside traditional European and North American ones to prop up earnings, Atiur Rahman, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank, said yesterday.
Among the major Asian markets, India, China and Japan could be the most potential ones, he said while presenting a keynote paper, adding that Bangladesh's exports to India had the capacity to rise by 300 percent.
For instance, if Bangladesh can tap even 1 percent of India's import market, it can easily export $4 billion worth of products, he said.
Rahman was addressing a discussion on “policy framework for post LDC graduation of Bangladesh: business perspective” organised by the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) in collaboration with Freidrich Naumann Stiftung at the Sonargaon hotel in Dhaka.
South Asian economies represent a market of 1.7 billion people but intra-regional trade currently accounts for only 5 percent of the region's total trade, said Rahman.
He urged the entrepreneurs to invest more on ICT, which was considered the next readymade garment industry in Bangladesh, as the sector would be able to provide jobs to 1.6 million people who would be looking for work every year in Bangladesh.
Rahman suggested that the businesspeople make the best use of the $200 million green transformation fund that the central bank disburses at low interest among exporters.
Nazneen Ahmed, senior research fellow at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, suggested that the government increase investment opportunities for women entrepreneurs.
Bangladesh should utilise its demographic dividend: 5.5 crore people being in the age range of 15 to 29 years, meaning they are young and of the working age, she said.
Ahmed said Bangladesh needs a lot of skilled people for the opening up of the economy in different areas like fashion designing, shoemaking and goods marketing.
Abul Kalam Azad, principal coordinator for SDG affairs under the Prime Minister's Office, asked women entrepreneurs to contact the special economic zones' office as the government was planning to allocate 10 percent of the industrial plots in such zones for them.
If the women entrepreneurs want, the government will allocate a zone exclusively for them, he said.
Azad said the government has been working to create a way so that local cotton growers can go to African countries to cultivate cotton and meet domestic demand.
Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed said Bangladesh's exports would reach $60 billion by 2021.
If the government comes to power again, the country's ranking in the ease of doing business will move to within 100 from the existing 177th among 190 nations.
Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, the FBCCI president, said Bangladesh was no more a country dependent on foreign assistance.
He said the local garment manufacturers spent billions of US dollars to strengthen workplace safety but international retailers and brands had not increased prices of apparel items.
Sheikh Fazle Fahim, senior vice-president of the FBCCI, moderated the discussion while Ananya Raihan, chief executive officer of Dnet, also spoke at the event participated by leaders of the FBCCI, different chambers and trade bodies, exporters, manufacturers and researchers.
