Govt has no words for the masses struggling to survive

Bangladesh’s economic scenarios are getting even bleaker.

Dollar reserves have come down below 18 billion and in the coming days there is no indication that the reserves will increase, as remittance is falling.

Last September the size of remittance sent by the workers was the lowest in the last 41 months. Export earnings are also not encouraging.

Everything indicates Bangladesh’s present economic crisis will deepen even further.

It is also feared by mid 2024, dollar reserves may come down to 10 billion dollars.

The sudden drop in remittance has been blamed due to the fixing of the different rates of dollars.

Expatriate workers are sending money through the informal channel.

In the last few years the number of Bangladesh workers working in foreign lands has increased.

Moreover, as neither income of workers has decreased in the countries they have gone to, nor has the cost of living risen too much in those countries, it might be true that expatriate workers are sending money through hundis.

Coming to export earnings, surely the Ukraine-Russia war has been taking a toll on the RMG export.

Economists predicted that earnings from the garments sector, which saw a comeback after the Covid-19 pandemic, would go down with fall in order from the European countries. The prediction has now come true.

There is little hope that the European economy will recover any time soon. Bangladesh’s export earnings are very likely to jeopardise the already unstable central bank dollar reserves.

Time and again, we advised the economic policymakers of the country to create the alternative third or even fourth sector, besides garments and remittance earning, so that Bangladesh’s economy can fall back upon in times of crisis as it is now at present.

The government did not go for this, instead it allowed syndicates of its party people to destroy the country’s promising leather industry which has also been hit hard by Europe’s economic downturn.

It is very unfortunate that on the one hand the price of leather footwear has seen a manifold rise over the past years, but on the other hand rawhides of sacrificial animals became so cheap that people dug holes to dump and bury rawhides under earth.

The government’s mismanagement has destroyed the leather industry.

It is ironic that when people are struggling to survive, the government has, apparently, no plan to overcome the depressing economic conditions. It has no words for the people.