Bangladesh Developments

Yunus says another way to make his health care network sustainable is to encourage Bangladeshi women to train as nurses and become part of the Grameen health care system. "In Bangladesh, we are in a very strange situation where there are three doctors per nurse because the shortage of nurses is so big. So we thought we could turn it around. You have plenty of girls with good quality education. We can run them through the nursing colleges, and they become good health care workers and they will fill up the gap," he said.

At the same time, railway communications in the country’s northern districts need to be expanded.   Hasina then proposed setting up underpasses in the capital as a way out of the nagging traffic jam in the metropolis.   The prime minister said she had already talked to the Dhaka City Corporation mayor about constructing an under-bypass linking the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban and the NAM flats wherein the lawmakers reside.   The government has another plan to create a Ring Road surrounding the capital, she said.   The prime minister asked the communications ministry to help the city corporation remove traffic congestions from the capital city.   Hasina said most of the major bridges like the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, Paksey Bridge, Dharala Bridge, Gabkhan Bridge and Shikarpur Doarika Bridge were set up by the Awami League government.

In the first nine months of fiscal 2009 (July-March), 537,000 migrant workers found employment abroad compared to 720,000 in the same period last year. The migrant outflow to Gulf Cooperation Council member countries has declined by 16 percent from 407,000 in fiscal 2008 (July-Feb) to 342,000 in fiscal 2009 (July-Feb).Data shows that 13,540 Bangladeshi workers returned between December 2008 and February 2009.

Frozen shrimp has experienced a steep decline in prices from $5 per kg to $3.7 per kg.

The current economic situation in Bangladesh is stable, but this cannot be taken for granted.

The WB suggested Bangladesh take effective stimulus measures that include strengthening social safety nets, frontloading existing projects and increasing maintenance spending, expenditure increase tends to be more effective than tax cuts.The WB said the measures Bangladesh should avoid include new large-scale entitlement programmes, increase in public-sector wage bill, increase in subsidies to specific industries, reduction in corporate tax rates, increase in tariffs, tax amnesties for companies and interest rate ceilings. On the constraints to a bailout package, the WB report said the government does not have adequate space to finance large bailout packages. "There is some room for higher fiscal deficit, because of savings from subsidy provision, but it needs to be used wisely. These may not benefit the poor," it said.There are better candidates for spending the improved fiscal space: infrastructure, support to small and medium enterprises, microcredit schemes, health and education, safety net programmes, it said.The WB stressed the need for structural reforms to improve investment climate.The WB recommended immediate measures such as reassessing public spending priorities: rural and urban infrastructure, especially power sector, basic health and education. It also emphasised support to the microfinance sector and enhancing the small enterprise fund and support to the housing finance market.Recommending giving transit, the WB said it would promote regional connectivity and trade. It said Bangladesh could earn an additional $1.0 billion or more from exports, transit charges and port fees.

The garment industry employs 2.5 million workers, mostly women, who account for more than 40 percent of Bangladesh's industrial workforce.

the currencies of India and Pakistan have depreciated against the dollar in recent months, making their goods cheaper, while the Bangladeshi taka has remained steady."Garment exports grew over 40 percent in the first quarter as orders meant for China directed to Bangladesh because of its cheap production cost,' said trade expert Mustafizur Rahman, a visiting Yale University professor."But it started to slow down sharply since October as China has withdrawn taxes and pumped incentives to its apparel manufacturers to cushion against global recession," he said.The BGMEA, which groups 4,500 export-oriented garment factories, said firms need subsidies worth 10 percent of the value of their exports to stay competitive.

The World Bank has forecast growth this financial year could be two percentage points lower than expected at 4.5 percent, the lowest in eight years.Last year the economy grew by 6.2 percent and the government had been aiming for 6.5 percent this year.On top of the export slump, Bangladeshi workers abroad are being laid off in the Middle East, South East Asia and other countries where Bangladeshis find low-skilled, low-wage work.This has hit remittances, another worry for authorities as money sent home by workers abroad is the second biggest foreign exchange earner after exports.

Port officials said when built annual container handling capacity will rise to 3.0 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) and bulk cargo handling will rise to 100 million tons. CPA will fund 30 percent of the construction cost for the deep seaport while the rest will be collected from government and local and international financiers, ministry officials said. "The first phase of the deep seaport when completed by 2016 will have two harbours of nine 300-metre (long) jetties along with required infrastructure and back-up facilities," said Eddy Declercq, a senior official PCI. The second phase, expected to be completed by 2035, would see two more harbours with the same specifications. The deep-sea port would have six harbours when the third phase would be completed by 2055, the PCI expert said. The study proposed a 40 km railway tracks and roads to connect the deep seaport with Chittagong and Cox's Bazar resort town.

PCI was awarded a $1.62 million contract to conduct the study in 2006, after the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) had took up a plan for the deep seaport off Kutubdia coast, 65 km (40 miles) south of the port. 

Once upon a time, mobile operators made profits even after paying the SIM tax on behalf of customers, because the per minute call charge was Tk 7, said Fazlur Rahman, president of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators in Bangladesh (AMTOB). "That is no longer possible by offering calls at Tk 0.25 per minute."

Grameenphone is the market leader, having 20.94 million customers. The BTRC figures also showed Egyptian Orascom-owned Banglalink has a 10.70 million-subscriber base. AKTEL, majority-owned by Telekom Malaysia International, has 8.598 million users.The lone CDMA operator Citycell owns 1.85 million customers while the state-run TeleTalk has 0.93 million customers.

Dwelling on hurdles to Indo-Bangla trade, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said issues like product codification and quality checking, raised by India, are acting as non-tariff barriers. To remove such bottlenecks, she has asked ICC to take up initiatives in resolving the problem of delays in getting certificates from India on Bangladesh’s exports and lack of testing facilities in the North-East. In this context, she told ICC that her government is working on product specification and upgradation of quality in consultation with Bureau of India Standard (BIS).