The not-so-poor relation

Currently large parts of Bangladesh are under water creating what amounts to an annual crisis brought on by the monsoon; and in the southeast of the country anything up to 150,000 Rohingya refugees are pouring in from Myanmar, another humanitarian crisis of almost unimaginable proportions. Bangladesh has more than its share of burdens to bear, yet paradoxically the national GDP is in remarkably good shape — and getting better. When it won independence from Pakistan in 1971 it truly was poverty-stricken, and far poorer than the country it had fought to leave. Industry accounted for a mere 6-7 per cent of GDP in comparison to the 20 per cent then prevailing in Pakistan. Millions were displaced, infrastructure shattered and the banking system in tatters.

Today it is being reported in The Economist that there has been an upturn in fortunes such that the Bangladeshi GDP per person is now higher than that of Pakistan. It is now, when converted into US dollars, $1,538 in the past fiscal as against that of Pakistan at about $1,470. However, rather than this being because of a rapid rise in economic expansion it is more to do with an event that happened recently in Pakistan — the census. The documented rise in the population has had the effect of taking 4-5 per cent off the GDP of every person in Pakistan. Add to this the fact that the dollar goes further in Pakistan than it does in Bangladesh and the shine comes off somewhat. Nevertheless the moment is significant. Annual growth rates in Bangladesh have been above 7 per cent in the last two years and from a pitiful base point industry is now accounting for 29 per cent of GDP. It exports more readymade garments than India and Pakistan combined. Of almost equal import the last census in Bangladesh noted a change in the population almost as big proportionately as that in Pakistan. Downwards.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2017.

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