Former Governor of Bangladesh Bank and eminent economist Professor Dr Atiur Rahman has said recent experience of Bangladesh has proven that it is quite possible to have more growth and more equality, at least in the area of consumption. 

He came up with these observations while delivering a special public lecture organized by the Economics Department at Khulna University on Thursday. The session was chaired by Professor Shah Newaz of Economics Department. Teachers and students attended the jam packed program.

Dr Atiur said, "The income inequality can still be sticky. Inclusive policies including special attention to uplifting those at the bottom of the pyramid and complementarity between the state and non-state actors have been the core drivers behind these more broad based achievements". 

Bangladesh has commendable achievements in terms of macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, per-capita income and poverty reduction. Prudent and inclusive policies have resulted in significant positive changes in terms of social indicators as well. 

These successes have been fueled by steady increase in agricultural wages, significant progress in terms of female-male wage ratio, positive change in agriculture wage-productivity relationship etc, he pointed out. He opined that Bangladesh economy has huge growth potential as RMG sector will continue to boom for a number of decades in the future. 

Enhancing compliance and greening will result in enhanced access to developed markets for our RMG products. There is also huge potential in terms of regional trade. For example, Bangladesh's export to India can potentially rise by 300 percent. Bangladesh also has a burgeoning domestic consumer market.

By 2025 there will be 33 cities in the country with over 300 thousand middle and affluent class population. If the current trend of inclusive growth continues Bangladesh is set to become 24th largest economy by 2033. In addition, the ICT sector has the potential of becoming another successful export sector like garments in the near future.

Bangladesh will have to pay special attention to ensuring good governance and maintaining the socio-political stability to ensure this trend of positive macro-economic transformation continues, opined Dr Atiur. 

Policy attention is required to fast implementation of mega-projects including the SEZs, in addition to ensuring an enabling environment for the private sector. Education-industry linkage also have to be emphasized to ensure proper utilization of our youthful workforce by improving skill development and creating facilities for entrepreneurship development. 

Finally, he pleaded for fiscal policy reforms to ensure that the government has enough revenue collected to spend in the development projects. This is a must for sustaining the ongoing speedy development journey of Bangladesh, he added.