‘How fish and meat luxury products, if per capita income is $2824?’

Staff Reporter :
The real incomes of low earner people of the country have gone down during in the current economic crisis for which they excluded fish and meat from food list.
Now the question is how fish and meat become luxury goods, if per capita income is $2824, said Selim Raihan, Executive Director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM).
He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Bangladesh Economy: Areas of Concern and Measures’ organized by the private research institution SANEM virtually on Thursday.
Raihan said that the higher inflation and risk to food security are major concerns in the current economic crisis.
“The inflation has been hovering between 6 and 9.5 per cent since last February. It is actually higher than the calculation, but it is understated as there is a debate in this regard. But the rate of inflation in Vietnam, India and Indonesia is lower than Bangladesh,” he said.
In last October, the inflation rate was 6.77 per cent in India, 5.71 per cent in Indonesia, 4.30 per cent in Vietnam and in Bangladesh it was 8.91 per cent.
Highlighting the results of series of surveys on the workers of the export-oriented garment industry, Raihan said that the food security index of the garment workers is lowering, which means the workers and their family members are eating less than before.
“The monthly income of the workers has also declined as working hours have decreased due to fall in shipment orders in the garment sector,” he said.
Higher inflation and fall in real wages of the workers have created risks to the food security, he added.
“Foreign currency reserves have been decreasing by $1 billion an average in last 11 months. There is no good news in exports and remittances in the coming days. Opening of letter of credits (LCs) has declined,” he said.
“Economic growth and employment will be decreased in the current fiscal year due to fall in import of capital machineries and intermediate raw materials. The structure of foreign debt is also changing,” he said.
“If exports and remittances do not increase in the coming days, there will be additional pressure on the economy to repay the foreign debt after a few years,” he said.
He further said the marginalized population of the country should be brought under social safety net in order to overcome the current crisis and the scope needs be expanded as many will be at risk of food safety newly.
Besides, depletion of the foreign currency reserves should be prevented, he added.
On the other hand, the government should have willingness to bring reforms in the revenue and banking sectors, he said.
Besides, a high-level committee should be formed with all the concerned stakeholders to overcome the current crisis and steps may be taken as per the recommendations of that committee, he added.
Replying to query, Raihan said there is less risk of famine in the country, but talking about famine again and again creates fear.
“However, there may be food shortages in some places for a temporary period. So, steps should be taken in advance,” he added.