Bangladesh Development Strategies

Bangladesh Development
Research Center (BDRC)

“Every human being has one mouth and two hands. If you enable the
hands to produce, then feeding the mouth is no problem.”

Bangladeshi proverb, quoted by A. Atiq Rahman
in: Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism, p. 41

BDRC Research: Bangladesh's Development Strategies

Abstract:

While poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs)

need

to remain to be the center of Bangladesh’s development strategy, there are

suggestions to

broaden the

agenda towards a more forward-looking development and

employment

strategy. For

example, it has been

suggested that information technology could be

Bangladesh’s

superhighway to

prosperity. Others consider

agribusiness (for the domestic and

foreign sectors) of

being able to provide

the amount of employment

needed for Bangladesh’s

growing population. Still

others concentrate on

intensifying export promotion polices.

This

research project will evaluate the

advantages and

disadvantages of some alternative

development

strategies as well as make

suggestions on the optimal

mix of alternative

development strategies.

Related background:

In 1983, the jute mills of the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC)

exported

71,841

tons of jute carpet

and earned Taka 1.89 billion, providing the life line for millions

Bangladeshis.

Today, most

of Bangladesh's jute carpet factories are closed down, partly due to the

emergence of synthetic

fiber

(polypropylene). Yet, in view of the cotton price rise over the last few years,

few textile producers have

been

using jute yarn to produce denim. Bangladesh may emerge as a major

denim

producer in the world as --

being a

front ranking jute producing country -- it has an edge over

others. Indeed,

according to the Export

Promotion

Bureau (EPB), export of jute yarn grew 42 per cent to

Taka 10.28 billion in

2004-05 fiscal and 12.5

per cent to

Taka 11.57 billion in 2005-06.

Please see also the BDRC's task on:

Jute-Bangladesh's Golden Fiber of the Past, also of the Future?

Outputs:

The first output related to this research project is a paper by Dr. Jahan, Dr. Gunter, and Dr. Rahman,
who show how substituting wood with nonwood fibers in papermaking in Bangladesh implies a win-win
solution for Bangladesh as it reduces the large import of pulp and paper as well as creates employment
in the agricultural and industrial sectors of Bangladesh. For further details, please see the fourth paper
in the BDRC's Bangladesh Development Research Working Paper Series (BDRWPS).
The second output related to this research project is a follow-up paper by Dr. Gunter, Dr. Jahan, and Dr.
Rahman. The follow-up paper looks beyond the availability and suitability of jute for papermaking. It
analyzes the economic viability of jute pulp, the main implications for Bangladesh’s economy as well as
some developmental and environmental implications. The second paper was presented by Dr. Gunter at
the Conference on “Ideas and Innovations for the Development of Bangladesh: The Next Decade”, held
on October 9-10, 2009 at the JFK School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Please
click here for the summary presentation of the paper. The full paper is published in Munir Quddus and
Farida Khan (eds.) Bangladesh Economy in the 21st Century: Selected Papers from the 2008-09
Conferences at Harvard University (Dhaka: University Press Ltd., 2011), Chapter 4.

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