70pc people believe economy on wrong track: Study

Staff Reporter :
More people than ever think that Bangladesh economy is heading towards a wrong direction and the increase in prices of daily commodities has had a severe impact on their lives, according to a survey.

The survey, conducted by The Asia Foundation and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD), was revealed on Tuesday.

According to the survey around 70 per cent of the respondents alleged that in terms economy, the country is heading towards wrong direction and 84 per cent of them claimed that the impact of commodity prices has been severe in their lives.

The survey was conducted on 10,240 people in 64 districts of the country from last November to January and 160 respondents were taken from each district. Half of the respondents were women.

One of the questions of the survey was do you think Bangladesh is going in the right direction in terms of economy?
In response, 70 per cent people said that Bangladesh is heading towards the wrong direction, 25 per people think right direction, 4 per cent said they don’t know about it and 1 per cent did not response.

It is mentioned that the people, have low income, think that the country is going in the wrong direction economically.

In response to the question of what are the country’s biggest problems, the largest number of people said that the cost of daily commodities.

Then there are economic or business downturns, unemployment or livelihood problems, political instability or intolerance, corruption and population growth.

44 per cent of people cited the cost of daily essentials as the biggest problem, up from 33 per cent in 2019.

The economy or business downturn came in at 11 per cent, up from 5 per cent in 2019. 10 percent of people said unemployment or livelihood problems, which was 18 per cent in 2019. Corruption was brought forward by 3 per cent of people, which was 11 per cent in 2019.

18 per cent cited other issues as major problems and 4 per cent said they don’t know the answer to the question.

Responding to the question of impact recent price hike, 84 per cent said that they are affected severely and 13 per cent answered that they had been hurt in some way.

The rate of non-affected persons due to commodity prices is very low.

For example, only 1 per cent of the respondents said that they were not hurt much and 2 per cent said they were not hurt at all.

72 per cent of the respondents strongly and fairly agreed with the view that Bangladeshi politics is dominated by one party.

The rate was 86 per cent in 2019.

It is mentioned that there have been several other recent surveys on the impact of commodity prices on people’s lives.

As a survey by the World Food Program (WFP) said last October, 64 per cent of people are struggling to buy food, some are selling family assets to buy it and some are taking loans.

55 per cent of the respondents think the role of the dominant party in politics is negative, which was 38 per cent in 2019. 36 per cent felt the party’s role was positive, up from 59 per cent in 2019.

People’s sympathy towards Rohingyas is decreasing. In 2019, 15 per cent of people had a positive opinion on the Rohingya issue, which dropped to 13 per cent in 2022.

44 per cent of people think that the government has done and is doing enough for the Rohingyas.

Majority of the people (72 per cent) said Padma Bridge is the most important achievement of Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was credited with the construction of the bridge by almost half of the people (47 per cent) who participated in the survey.

28 per cent people gave credit to the government and 1 per cent gave credit to Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges and Bangladesh Awami League.