Bangladesh among Top 5 Fastest Growing Key Emerging Economies in 2014!

Well, it is quite a long title to define the character of these countries, but it's wonderful to know that Bangladesh is among top 5 fastest growing key emerging economies in 2014 in terms of GDP in PPP terms, ranked by Euromonitor International (Top 5 Fastest Growth Key Emerging Economies in 2014). Despite large political instability in the middle of the fiscal year, achieving over 6.0% GDP growth is per se a praiseworthy economic performance. However, it doesn't also reflect Bangladesh's right potential in terms of GDP growth due to large infrastructure shortage and serious lack of governance for delivering public resources. These are not just demands anymore, but necessities. 

New Development Approach of India!

Probably, one of solid recent ideas to reform the planning process of least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh came out from India’s newly elected Prime Minister (India’s East Asian Dream). The idea is clear: reduce the dependence on bureaucratic-based planning process to more allocation to the priority sector based ideas.  Also, it was rightly recognized the fact that Five-Year Plan process is quite old-fashioned and based on the philosophy of command-based economy, and thus cannot reflect the current needs of market-based economies. The success is inevitable, if implementation follows the dream.

As a LDC, Bangladesh may like to think the similar realistic approach. It seems that the planning process of Bangladesh needs a real boost, based on priority rather than general intervention by the government, as described in the Five-Year Plan. The country needs more focused-priority needs such as infrastructure and power, as medium term measures, for ensuring the smooth business process of the private sector. For getting the long-term benefits of development, it must ensure the high quality of education and health services. Simple!   

Bangladesh Remittance Survey Results!

Mr. Zahid Hussain writes based on the survey results made by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics on four broad categories; (i) who are migrants; (ii) whom and how do they remit; (iii) how significant are remittances; and (iv) learning experiences.

Link for the blog.

Keystone Quarterly Review (June 2014)

Keystone publishes its flagship publication (Keystone Quarterly Review, June 2014) with economic stories on social safety nets in Bangladesh, slowdown in remittance inflows, and some other issues.

Link for the review.

What makes a good economist?

If you have interest listening this, please go ahead. 

Rethinking Economics in a Changed World!

Although a little bit old, but still it’s a worth reading. Camilla Andersen, in Finance and Development, IMF (June 2011), sums up the assessment of three Nobel Laureates on global financial crisis, and the discussion what the crisis has meant.  

Link for the article. 

MPS, BB (July-December 2014)

Bangladesh Bank unveils the latest (July-December 2014) edition of its monetary policy statement, with basically no change in its prior position of monetary tightening measures.

Link for the MPS.

Response on Raising CRR!

Professor M.A. Taslim writes on the impact of raising CRR.

The link of the article.

Main messages came out from the article are as follows:

1. the ultimate loser of raising CRR will be the ordinary people, who have regular transactions with commercial banks;
2. This attempt of the central bank will raise the interest rate up;
3. While the main job of the central bank should be to target nonfood inflation, it now wrongly  targets food inflation also. Probably, the central bank is misguided with using its policy instruments;
4. Without improving the investment climate, which is the pressing need of the economy at this moment, the current trend of ever-increasing excess liquidity of the banking system can't be stopped.

One more issue that the article couldn't cover: If one carefully plots a graph with historical data (year-on-year change) of net credit to the government and credit to the private sector, they will see the long-term trend of negative relationship, including recently. While Bangladesh Bank has been trying to discourage the government to borrow from BB's own funds, basically to avoid inflation threats, then raising CRR at this time will definitely open another door of crowding out of private investment funds. So, the central bank needs more thoughtful/innovative steps.   

Profile of Alan Krueger

Princeton Alumin Weekly profile Alan Krueger, former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, the White House.

Link of the profile.

IMF Staff Report: 4th Review under ECF

The IMF Staff Report covers the fourth review under the ECF with latest macroeconomic update, and a debt sustainability analysis update. 

Annual Budget FY2014-15 Documents

The Government announced its annual budget for fiscal year 2014-15.

Link for budget documents.

Political stability and economic growth

Probably, one of the well written articles, and critically analysed on the relationship between political stability and economic growth by Dr Zahid Hussain, Lead Economist, World Bank. The article is partly related with current economic and political context of Bangladesh, however the applicability of the main message won't entirely limit to Bangladesh only. Definitely it has a global context.

Link for the article.

A Profile of Christopher Pissarides

IMF's Finance & Development profiles Christopher Pissarides, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for work on unemployment and labor markets.

Link of the profile. 

Moody's Rating on Bangladesh

Moody's Investor Service provides its credit analysis and rates the Bangladesh economy based on its rating system; one may find the latest version of that, published on 29 April, 2014 useful.

Knowledge-based Asian Economies

Asian Development Bank (ADB) publishes a paper 'Innovative Asia: Advancing the Knowledge-Based Economy' with status of Asia-Pacific economies based on the World Bank developed the Knowledge Economy Index (KEI) using a four-pillar framework: (i) Economic and Institutional Regime; (ii) Education and skill of population; (iii) Information infrastructure; and (iv) Innovative system. The paper is probably one of the few which captures the current state of knowledge-based economies, and one may easily see the status of Bangladesh also. One comment: It's not satisfactory at all!