Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
Innovation--technological, institutional, and policy-- should be the unifying principle for Bangladesh's transition to a competitive, inclusive, and sustainable post-LDC economy, a policy paper has suggested.
By embedding pro-innovation reforms into its economic governance, Bangladesh can reconcile growth with social welfare and environmental safeguard, positioning itself as a resilient middle- income economy by 2031 and a developed nation by 2041, it added.
The policy paper titled 'An Innovation Policy Agenda for Bangladesh' was presented at a discussion held at Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled Conference Hall in the city's Bangla Motor area on Sunday.
The paper was jointly published by Malaysia-based think-tank Centre for Market Education (CME), Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), and Independent University Bangladesh (IUB)
Dr Shahriar Kabir, Professor, Department of Economics, IUB, Dr. Mahfuz Kabir, Research Director at BIISS and Dr. Carmelo Ferlito, CEO of the CME, jointly prepared the paper.
Legal Economist M S Siddiqui moderated the discussion while Dr Suzana Karim, Associate Professor, Institute of Health Economics, University of Dhaka, joined the discussion, among others. Dr. Mahfuz Kabir presented the keynote highlighting the policy paper.
The paper said innovation should not be narrowly understood as technological advancement in high-tech industries. Instead, it must encompass new governance approaches, financing models, regulatory frameworks, and healthcare strategies.
The paper notes that Bangladesh's GDP growth slowed from 6.0 per cent in 2023 to 3.98 per cent in 2024-25, largely due to inflation, declining private investment, and global uncertainties.
Overreliance on garments and remittances exposes the economy to shifting global demand, automation, and changing migration policies.
To safeguard growth, the authors called for diversification into agriculture, high-value manufacturing, and services, supported by Industry 4.0 adoption and skills upgrading
In his introductory remarks, Dr Shahriar Kabir said an economic boost was expected within the next 3-4 years, for which new technologies were going to play a vital role.
"Now the question is where Bangladesh stands in terms of the changes that are happening now," he said.
Highlighting the need for dealing with skills, he said: "What are the upcoming skills and technologies? Now we need to analyse the future challenges".
Dr Suzana Karim said human capital development through health and education was critically important.
Despite being a crucial basic need of a human, health was severely overlooked from public funding perspective with a little budgetary allocation. She underscored the need for further digitalisation and introduction of unique identification in the healthcare sector for better governance.
M S Siddiqui said in the market economy ensuring competitiveness was highly important.
"There should be competitiveness in the local market as well as international market," he said.
He also underscored the need for export diversification for raising the country's competitiveness, for which, he said providing different sectors with similar facilities like the apparel sector was essential.
saif.febd@gmail.com