Go for skills-driven competitiveness

Bangladesh has to shift from preferential market access-driven competitiveness to skills and productivity-driven competitiveness as there will be no preference after 2026, experts said.

They spoke at a virtual programme, styled "Second Bay of Bengal Economic Dialogue 2022: Building Resilient BIMSTEC", organised by the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (Sanem) yesterday.

In the context of Covid-19 and the subsequent shifts in geo-political currents, it is imperative that the government and private sector expedite institutional framework for facilitating cross-border trade and investment.

The speakers observed that it is high time for BIMSTEC partners to discard any hesitancy related to engagement in free trade and other necessary agreements, and at the same time advance innovative solutions in relation to regional investments.

Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, said it is necessary to develop wide cooperation, participation and value chains with the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries.

"In the 21st century, we see that Asian countries are major importers. When it comes to how we can increase Bangladesh's exports to that place,  we need trade, investment and multimodal connectivity."

"If we can triangulate these three, then we can translate the comparative advantages into competitive advantages," he added.

Rahman said that considering Bangladesh's impending graduation from a least developed country, regional cooperation will be much more important.

"Almost all of our exports are to North America and the EU. We had huge potential in the BIMSTEC region because they import a lot, but not from us. We have to attract investment targeting the BIMSTEC market."  

Nisha Taneja, professor of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, said the three major pillars of business are trade, investment and connectivity.

These are the three pillars that would create and enable the regional value change to prosper.