Newspaper : The Independent

Date : 9/9/2009

Bangladesh ranked 106th position in Global Competitive Index (GCI) among the 133 countries in terms of growth and business said Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) 2009 released globally as well as Dhaka yesterday outlining the new approach to develop the infrastructure. Bangladesh advanced five ranks to reach the 106th position among 133 countries in the GCI by marking substantial progress but the overall assessment remains very poor according to the report of GCR, an annual publication of World Economic Forum (WEF) "Infrastructure bottlenecks and policy constraints may frustrate Bangladesh's overall investment and business prospect for the year 2009 despite some improvement marked in the GCR 2009," said Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya while releasing the GCR report at its conference room in the city. CPD in collaboration with the WEF has been assessing the business competitiveness environment in Bangladesh since 2001. This is the ninth in the series. The CPD also released Bangladesh Business Environment Study conducted by it simultaneously. Debapriya Bhattacharya briefed journalist on the report while Khondaker Golam Moazzem read it out. According to the report a total of 133 countries have been assessed in 2008. Switzerland leads this year and overtakes the United States. US fall to second place is related to its weakened financial markets and less macroeconomic stability. Moldova has been dropped this year due to insufficient data. Top ten countries on GCI 2008 have remained same. However major shuffling has taken place in their rankings. Singapore moves up two ranks to third place remaining the top-ranked country from Asia. South Asia experiences mixed results; India, Bangladesh, Nepal performed relatively better. Pakistan holds its position, and Sri Lanka's rank fell. Bangladesh has demonstrated improvement by advancing the fifth position at 106 in 2008 while the country had ranked 111 in 2007. Macroeconomic stability showed considerable progress in 2008 despite the global meltdown but the overall score marginally declined in 2008. However, the report said poor physical infrastructure briddled businesses relegating corruption to back seat. Debapriya said infrastructure facilities of the country ranked one of the most inadequate in the world though marginal positive change was observed in the score. "Besides, poor performance of the labour market emerged as a major concern," he pointed out. Quoting report he said labour-market efficiency was at low level because of poor education quality at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, inability to meet industries' need by the management schools, problem or brain drain, and lack of availability of skilled labour force. Apart from these, corruption remained a major deterrent factor for business in 2008, the report said adding undocumented and illegal payments to public officials, judiciary, influential people were widely prevalent, which have weakened institutional reforms taking place in the country. On the other hand, electricity supply was perceived to be 'worst' since no noticeable improvement was observed in 2008, although a number of power generation projects had been undertaken which were going to be implemented by 2011. The report said port facilities needed further improvement to remain competitive at the regional level, the report said. According to the report ICT sector has advanced without proper direction and guidance. ICT related laws and regulations are yet to be approved. Financial environment has improved but high lending rate causes high cost for doing business; high loan default has also been responsible for the high lending rate, the report said adding capital market, though praised for its buoyancy, needed to shift its focus from short-term speculative gain to medium-term steady returns; lack of effective integrated industrial framework linking the credit and equity market was a major impediment, the report added.