While policy makers of the government are talking about increasing local and foreign investments, Prothom Alo published an investigative news reporting recession in the job market with sluggish new investment.
Needless to say, industries, trade and commerce in the country went through a round of recession due to corona pandemic.
Just when things started recovering from that blow in 2022, the Russia-Ukraine war led global economy towards further uncertainties, which had a severe impact on Bangladesh as well.
It isn’t that difficult to guess how fragile the situation can be for weaker and import-dependent countries where countries with stronger economy are struggling to control the situation.
Prices of daily commodities keep soaring.
Prothom Alo reports, the country’s import of capital machineries has reduced by 67 per cent in the past one year. LCs worth of USD 4.26 billion (426 crore) were opened in 2021-22 fiscal year. It reduced down to USD 1.41 billion (141 crore) in the 2022-23 (July to January) fiscal year.
The crisis of fuel is disrupting production in industrial factories while on the other hand capital machineries cannot be imported for dollar crisis.
Under such circumstances, you cannot expect to have industrial and commercial development. Industrialists are struggling to keep their existing industries afloat, let alone embark on new investment.
New companies, firms and share companies are being registered in lesser numbers. Such trends have been going on for the past three years.
It has been found through sources of the directorate of registration for joint stock companies and farms that highest 14,826 companies, firms and share companies have been registered in 2020-21 fiscal year.
Compared to that year registrations have reduced by 1,500 in number the next year. Only 6,576 companies have been registered in the first seven months of the current fiscal year.
This means entrepreneurs are losing interest in investment, which in turn is effecting employment.
In various factories, industrialists aren’t replacing employees who have left. Mohammad Hatem, executive president of BKMEA, the apex body of knitwear owner, told Prothom Alo, there has been no new investments in the garments sector for the last couple of months for the costs have gone up.
In fact, when someone’s resigning from a job, no one new is being appointed to that post either. Usually, five to ten per cent workers leave every month without notifying, he added.
The situation prevails not only in the garments industry. No new investments have been coming in majority of the formal and informal sectors.
Government policy makers are being complacent in saying Bangladesh’s economy hasn’t gone bankrupt like that of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
But have they given any thought as to what the situation will be if investment doesn’t increase or new industries aren’t established in the country?
The government has managed to tackle the situation for now taking a 4.5 billion dollar loan from IMF.
If the import of capital machineries keeps on reducing, it will have a severely negative effect on the industries sector.
Hence, there’s no alternative to removing the obstacles of investments for keeping the economy active and vibrant.
If the government believes the country to be in a good economic condition, then why doesn’t it take effective steps to ensure uninterrupted supply of fuel to the industries? The same question goes for the dollar crisis also.
If the import of capital machineries can be increased, industrial entrepreneurs will also attracted towards making new investments. And, when the investments go up, it will have a positive impact on employment as well.