Seminar “Economic Analysis and Policy”

Dr. Mohammad Ali Taslim

Independent Economics Society (IES), a voluntary student club under Department of Economics, School of Business organized a seminar titled as “Economic Analysis & Policy” on 4^th November 2010 at 4:30 pm at the seminar room of School of Busniess, 83 Suhrawardy Avenue  Baridhara, Dhaka. The chief guest of the seminar was Dr. Mohammad Ali Taslim  Professor of Economics University of Dhaka. He is currently the CEO of Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (The Ministry of Commerce), one of the directors of Bangladesh Bank and Former Chairman of Bangladesh Tariff Commission, (The Ministry of Commerce). Professor Bazlul Mobin Chowdhury (Vice Chancellor), Dr. Nadim Jahangir (Professor and Director, School of Business), Dr. A.K. Monaw-war Uddin Ahmad (Professor and Head, Department of Economics) and Prof. Nazrul Islam (Department of Social Sciences and Humanities ) were present at  the seminar amongst many other faculty members and distinguished guests at the School of Business.

In his speech, Dr. Mohammad Ali Taslim cited many common prejudices based on which the policies of this country are made. He sympathizes that the irony of fate is that in most countries like Bangladesh that need the most economic assistance, economists do not have any role to play in the policy making. He ends by strongly emphasizing on the fact that data must be properly collected and analyzed by competent economists before policies are made instead of basing them on popular prejudices as is the prevailing case in our country.

The seminar ended with a vote of thanks from Vice Chancellor, Prof. Bazlul Mobin Chowdhury.

Financial Transformation of Bangladesh Economy

The driving force for a nation today is the economic strength. Bangladesh is striving to become one of the middle income countries by 2021. A country’s overall economic performance is measured the total productive power of the economy in a year. While it is expected that the gross domestic product (GDP) of Bangladesh will continue to grow, the growth rate of GDP will determine the pace of the progress. A higher growth rate will enable Bangladesh to utilize is abundant manpower efficiently.

Once agriculture sector had the major contribution in GDP but as Bangladesh is developing, the contribution from agriculture sector is decreasing. And the contribution of financial sector such as industries, banks and remittance (foreign and domestic) is increasing. In 1986 agriculture sector directly contributes around 46 percent, in 1996 around 35 percent and in 2007-08 around 20.87 percent of the GDP. In 1986 industrial sector contributes around 10 percent, in 1996 around 11 percent and in 2007-08 around 17.77 percent of the GDP. Since 1996 economy has grown 5 to 6 percent per year before it was around 3 percent or less.