Banking giant Standard Chartered is optimistic about the economic and growth prospects of Bangladesh despite the recent militant attacks. According to the bank's chief executive for Bangladesh Abrar A Anwar: “We believe there are strengths in the country and in the country's growth outlook, people and clients”. He also stated that the bank’s board has picked Bangladesh as an investment destination. The bank has raised more than $3.5 billion investment in the last four years for the power, energy, aviation and telecom sectors of Bangladesh.

The balance of payments surplus swelled by more than 15% last fiscal year to $5.04 billion thanks to lower import growth than export and an increase in foreign aid. However, Bangladesh Bank projects the surplus will be eroded by half this fiscal year, as the investment scenario is expected to pick up. In fiscal 2015-16, exports grew 8.94% and imports 5.45%, which caused the expansion of the overall surplus, according to data from the Bangladesh Bank. During the period, the trade deficit stood at $6.27 billion in contrast to $6.96 billion in fiscal 2014-15.

INFRASTRUCTURE AND MEGA PROJECTS

Two jetties of Mongla Sea Port will be developed involving $52.74 million under public private partnership (PPP) and an agreement in this regard was signed on Sunday between the Mongla Sea Port Authority and Powerpack Ports Limited. The annual container handling capacity of the port will stand at 1 million TEUs (Twenty Feet Equivalent Unit) after development of the jetties. The government has already implemented seven projects at a cost of $39.4 million for the development of Mongla port, while three more projects are under implementation phases.

The government has taken a mega plan to conduct 2,001 kilometers of river dredging and 690 kilometers of river training over the next 15 years. The aim of this mega plan is to maintain the navigability of rivers, river management from which the country could reap the maximum benefit at a time when siltation is a threat in almost all rivers of the country. The government has taken an initiative for capital dredging and management of major rivers of the country. A feasibility study on capital dredging and sustainable river management in Bangladesh has already been done on 24 rivers of the country and this dredging project follows from that study.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

The overall manpower export from Bangladesh is expected to witness a robust growth at the yearend as the officials say as many as 4,52,420 workers have got overseas jobs this year and many more skilled and semi-skilled would go during the rest of 2016. Bangladesh has sent over 10 million overseas workers abroad with employment that has contributed significantly to the socio-economic advancement of the country. As many as 3858,078 workers have gone from Bangladesh to 69 countries till August 17, 2016 from 2009.

SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUITY

Bangladesh has planned to carry out a census on marginalized communities to pursue the new sustainable development goals or SDGs “leaving no-one behind”. A Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics official told a discussion on Monday that the issue had been discussed in the highest policy approval meeting of the government, the ECNEC. The government plans to carry out the census on over 1OO such communities to know the number of such population, Deputy Director of BBS Dipankar Roy told the discussion organized by three NGOs on ethnic minorities in plain lands.

POWER AND ENERGY

The proposed 1,320 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power plant in Maheshkhali, Chittagong is expected to begin its commercial operation by 2022, four years after the singing of the engineering procurement and construction contract (EPC) in 2018. The decision came at the first meeting in Dhaka this week of the Bangladesh-Malaysia Joint Steering Committee, formed to launch joint venture Company to set up the power plant. The meeting decided that the various agreements and studies for construction of the power plant would be completed by December 2016.

The government has approved an over $36 million to acquire 300 acres of land for the 300 to 400-megawatt supercritical coal power plant to be built by it in Munshiganj. This power plant is one of the several that the government will build across the country as part of the power sector master plan. The supercritical power plant would require less coal per megawatt-hour, leading to lower emissions, including carbon dioxide and mercury, higher efficiency and lower fuel costs per megawatt. The plant in Munshiganj will be on the banks of Meghna River, where some 50 families live. The amount stated above will be used for rehabilitating the families elsewhere.

INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL COOPERATION

As part of efforts to boost trade and improve rail communication, five rail routes will be launched between Bangladesh and India in phases by 2018. According to Bangladesh Railway, freight services will begin on the route from Biral in Dinajpur to Radhikapur in West Bengal by December this year and passenger services on Khulna-Kolkata route via Benapole by early next year. The other three routes are Shahbazpur-Mahisasan, Akhaura-Agartala and Chilahati-Holdibari routes, which will be used for carrying goods. Other routes being considered are Feni-Belonia, Burimari-Changrabandha and Banglabandha-Siliguri.

TRADE AND INVESTMENT

The country earned US$300 million by outsourcing online in the just concluded 2015-16 fiscal year. IT experts say that Bangladesh has a lot of potentialities to earn more foreign exchange from the sector. They hope to achieve $1 billion export earnings from IT outsourcing within 2020. As Bangladesh has a large number of young populations, the country can be the next top outsourcing destination, if it creates efficient workforce and carries on its development of infrastructure. This achievement and hope comes only years within the government embarking on the “Digital Bangladesh” mission in 2009.