BANGLADESH is set to graduate from the category of the least developed countries to become a developing country in 2026. The UN General Assembly in 2021 decided on Bangladesh鈥檚 graduation after it had qualified for it. The graduation was initially set to take place in 2024, but it was deferred by two years on a request by the government. The graduation would afford Bangladesh a better standing in many areas, but with the loss of some entitlements. The challenges that Bangladesh would face involve market access, dealing with trade partners, policy freedom and compliance enforcement. And to whatever extent Bangladesh would be able to nurture the potential opportunities to make up for the lost entitlements would depend on how Bangladesh plans to deal with the issues. In such a situation, exporters, who earlier took pride in the forthcoming graduation, have now urged the government to seek a further deferral of the happening, giving out the reason that the decision on the graduation was made based on fabricated economic data. A further deferral would also mean the deferral of the entitlements that would come along. Yet, this could still be an option that should be the last of the resorts.
While the exporters at an exchange of views of export-oriented trade associations in Dhaka on August 12 largely sought the deferral of Bangladesh鈥檚 graduation from the least developed country status citing that the decision was made based on fabricated economic data, they hardly sought that the public agencies, entities, quarters and individuals that have fabricated the economic data should be held to accounts. They all have called for major reforms in the financial sector and the resignation of the chair of the National Board of Revenue, but they have not called for the punishment of the people responsible for the flaws in economic data. Many of them may have been aware, which should be the most likely proposition, of the economic data situation, but hardly anyone of them was heard of raising their voice against the menace. The government should now, rather, find out the people and quarters that have manipulated the data, both in the public and the private sector, and hold them to justice. The businesspeople should throw their weight behind the government in the effort. A former vice-president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry at the programme has also demanded reforms in the trade associations, noting that all the associations have become platforms for a political party. If it has so happened, it has happened because the associations have allowed themselves to be so.
The industry leaders, but for one or two, who met the deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina on July 22, when the student movement for reforms in civil service job reservations and the consequent mayhem were running high, largely subscribed to the partisan narrative of the government of the day. They also must change.