Enhancing the countrys export volume
The unemployed
but educated youth of the country can engage themselves in sourcing their knowledge and skill if they can be
trained in IT
Bangladesh needs to seriously think over enhancing and diversifying its export volume. And in this regard generating knowledge and promoting innovation is crucially important. This has rightly been pointed out by the Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid in a views-exchange meeting entitled Innovation in education at the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) in the capital recently.
The garments industry, responsible for about 80 per cent of the countrys export now, has just weathered some bad patches of time after the Rana Plaza collapse. Here, Bangladeshs export was expected to overtake even China, but the sector is now not in that bright position. Therefore, it is as much necessary to remove the bottlenecks hindering the further growth of the industry, as it is to bring variety in our export basket.
For keeping our thriving economy on a strong footing we have to develop other sectors to fall back upon, if garments industry in any case suffers a setback in future. For developing other prospective sectors, the country needs to seriously think right now. In this regard, the burgeoning IT industry should be of much help and if properly taken care of, the unemployed but educated youth of the country can engage themselves in sourcing their knowledge and skill in the relevant fields.
The labour-intensive ship building industry is an area that comes next in this regard. Bangladesh already exported ships to countries like Germany, Denmark and Mozambique. This industry can solve the increasing unemployment problem, if the government helps the existing companies and encourage entrepreneurs to build more ships. The global annual market size of this industry is around US$1600 billion annually, but the market size of small ships is about US$ 400 billion. If Bangladesh gets offer of just one percent of small ships, it would be able to export $4 billion in a year.
Since more than 90 countries are exporting pharmaceutical items from Bangladesh, the potential of this sector is just great. Even the developed countries such as UK, Germany, Singapore, France, etc. can become destinations of Bangladeshi drugs and medical kits if this sector can be extended government help.
Then there is also jute and jute-based products, light engineering sector and cement industry that can prop our fragile economy during the time of crisis. The government now has to incentivise particular areas through making more research. The bottom line is: Bangladesh cannot hope to become a middle income nation depending only on its garments industry and remittance sent by the expatriate workers.
