Re: [ALOCHONA] Businessman from Bangladesh

Yes, the US economy is bad compare to how it was few years ago. Our economy on the other hand is facing pressure from policy maker. We have taken "Mega Projects" while fund is not available to cover the cost of those projects. Corruptions, inefficiencies, bureaucracy, lack of infrastructure force common citizens to live a much tougher life than before.

We lose billions of dollars every years because of horrible traffic jams!!

I was hoping that, after getting a huge mandate from our people, our current government would be able to turn things around but (Some very good initiatives) things are hanging up in the air with no respite for common people. To make up this deficit, there was huge borrowing by our government which made borrowing from bank "Costly" and by increasing price of essential, we are seeing high inflation as well. Because of lack of USD, our essential good are costlier than ever before. 

For example, people used to buy one unit of CNG for only 8 taka only couple years ago. Today it is 30 taka and we were told we may have to pay more in near future.

We are running out of gas, money, water and time (Since we cannot move due to huge traffic jams).

Therefore, you are right, SOME people are doing well and enjoying the good life. But MOST people in Bangladesh are having a difficult time to cope with this price hikes in a short span of time.

ON top of that, there are uncertainty in the "Political area" as well. So not only we don't have money to buy essentials, we have a problem with security as well.

It is kind of unfair to compare Bangladeshi "Quality of life" with places like Canada or USA.

You simply cannot compare. IN future it is likly that, more of us will have more money to spend but our "Quality of life" is slowly decreasing.

I am still hopeful that, our future leaders will show us the way like many leaders in other nations did for their people.

With so little resources, it is not easy to run Bangladesh and meet expectations. But having a democratic system (In local, regional and nation level) is not about money but it is about having the right "Vision". Good public services (Water, electricity, transport etc) is about planning and executing without too much corruption.

As our finance minister and BB governor mention we have some policy challenges (About increasing flow of money, restrict inflation, keeping up with growth rate etc) in front of us.

-----Original Message-----
From: Modasser Hossain <bolonhome@yahoo.com>
To: ALOCHONA NEWS <alochona@yahoogroups.com>; muktomona <muktomona@yahoogroups.com>; dahuk <dahuk@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Feb 29, 2012 2:05 am
Subject: [ALOCHONA] Businessman from Bangladesh

 

Abdur Rahim
Whenever I watch Bangladesh media, I find stories that its economy is in bad shape. Luckily I am still in good shape. I am involved in export business and my business is booming. We have recorded export growth in Bangladesh in 2011. As we are getting uninterrupted electricity without much load-shedding, we can meet our production schedule and export orders.
I am also happy that the value of taka has gone down and as a result, my export orders have increased significantly. My products are more competitive nowadays vis-à-vis others. I am informed that many well-to-do Bangladeshis are transferring their money abroad with a view to buy homes in USA and Canada as the US and the Canadian governments, in order to revitalize their economies, would grant 'citizenship' to those that would own homes worth over $500,000 or more in USA/Canada as per news media. For example, one of my friends, a former Minister from Chittagong, has asked his younger sister that live in Connecticut to buy a house for his family in USA. He is upset as the depreciation of Taka is more costly to him for his illegal money transfer.
I also understand that many people that live abroad are rushing to the Bangladesh Embassies to get their 'power of attorney' authorized by Missions to sell or transfer their property in Bangladesh for two reasons. First, land or property price is very high in Bangladesh now, and secondly, they would like to transfer such sale proceeds or funds abroad to buy homes in USA or Canada to get 'green cards'.
When I watched CNN News today, I came to know that the economy of Greece is also in bad shape. Its 30,000 government employees were working 'unpaid' and it would pay only 15% of 'allowable retirement benefits' to its retirees. Although Bangladesh economy is in bad shape as per media experts, none of its officials are without monthly salary or its retirement benefits for Dr. Akbar Ali Khan or any other retired offices those turned into 'talk show' wizards have reduced yet. Many of our politicians that have no regular income or jobs are also neither suffering of low standard of living or low mobility owing to bad economy in spite of the fact that transportation cost has gone up.
My son who graduated last year from a prestigious university in USA is without job and he informed me that many of his fellow graduates are without jobs now. My daughter and her husband who migrated to Canada few years ago had good jobs. Unfortunately, now my son-in-law is unemployed over a year. They are finding difficulty to meet their monthly mortgage payments as their economies are in bad shape unlike Bangladesh.
In US and Canada, the job market is very bad; depending on states, it varies between 6% and 18% and average now is 8.3%. Among the Hispanic and Blacks, it varies between 14 and 30 per cent. Per capita income in their countries has also reduced significantly. In USA, the Asian have the highest average income, double of the Blacks and higher to that of (Non-Hispanic) White community. This Asian community is also finding difficulty now. Few of them that lost their jobs in USA and Canada are taking up jobs back in India and few Bangladeshis have returned home to do business. My son-in-law is contemplating to return home. Because, Bangladesh is a growing economy---- our hotels are full, our restaurants are humming with customers, our stores are not without customers, our schools are not closing, our teachers are not being laid off like that of USA, our officers have not stopped driving government vehicles, our growth potentials is high, our food production is very good, our load shedding is low now, our roads are full of new cars, our real GDP growth rate is over 6.7% vis-à-vis 1.7% in USA, 2.1% in Canada, -0.5 in Japan and 0.5 in Australia. It is negative (-) 7.5% in Greece and (-) 1.7% in Portugal. In fact, the average real GDP growth rate is 1.7% in North America, 1.5% in Euro zone, 2.7% in Africa, 4.3% in Latin America, and the highest is in East and South Asian region and it is 7.1% in 2011 led by China (9.1%) and India (7.6%). Bangladesh never experienced such high real growth rate of 6.7% before. Its growth rates vary between 2 and 4 per cent in 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and 3 and 6 per cent during 2000 through 2008. We are glad that we could recently replace our old furniture with better ones and now we have custom-made draperies. Our economy is doing good and no wonder, Moody's' and Standard Poor's rated it higher, second highest in Asia while they ranked down their ratings for most of the Euro zone countries. Unfortunately, our desperate talk show wizards, and politically motivated political and business leaders are so partisan that they continue promoting disinformation against the country and its economy. Reportedly a few left-leaning intellectuals have received cash from abroad including a few media giants to stage an Arab Spring in Bangladesh just like Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia. Interesting is; the Western world's hopes faded way quickly when its favorite Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mohamed ElBaradei failed to take the lead of the Arab Spring and instead, Islamist Brotherhood took over and the situation is now murky. Self immolation by one in Tunisia overturned the government and therefore, our media being naïve reported two suicide cases for stock market debacle without investigation. But Bangladesh people are smart and they have more maturity and therefore, such disinformation campaign of select few did not work.

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