The need to compete

One of the key measures of a nation’s overall progress and prosperity is its proclivity to compete in the global economic arena.

While, according to the World Economic Forum’s The Global Competitiveness Report 2018, Bangladesh has slipped from being the 102nd most competitive country last year to 103rd this year, there is still reason to be optimistic about our growth as Bangladesh still remains the nation most open to foreign competition in all of South Asia.

National competitiveness, according to the report, is defined as a set of institutions, policies, and other factors which determine the level of productivity of any given nation.

While Bangladesh may still be more open to foreign competition in the entire sub-continent, it does not mitigate the numerous hurdles which foreign investors have to circumnavigate in order to find any sort of business success in our country.

Issues such as lack of vocational training and skills development, little to no technological readiness, and absolutely no sign of any innovation on any front (a metric where we have ranked the lowest in all of Asia, according to the recent Global Innovation Index 2018), all play a part in bringing our competitiveness down.

It’s not enough to be open to foreign competition, we need the necessary policies and infrastructural advancements required to foster an environment that appears attractive to both local entrepreneurs and foreign investors.

All of these factors, and more, come together to determine a country’s openness in the global economy.

Additionally, internal factors such as bureaucracy and corruption at even the most rudimentary levels of our administration prove to be just as damaging, if not more, to our overall competitiveness in the global economy.

As such, the onus lies on the government to put the necessary policies in place and cut down excessive red tape from within the system if we wish to remain competitive, and go even further.