Bangladesh has ranked first among the South Asian countries in secondary education, and fourth in the region in digital skills, according to the World Skills Clock. Secondary education level skills represent traditional reading and maths skills typically associated with in-school learning. The World Skills Clock is a collaboration between Unicef, the Education Commission, GenU and World Data Lab. In Bangladesh, 42.2% of the youth have secondary education. Secondary skills are based on students meeting benchmarks in either literacy and/or numeracy based on recent data. World Skills Clock assumes that those in school, based on total net enrolment rate, achieve this calculated rate of skills acquisition, and those out of school achieve half of this value.

Bangladesh is now the 41st largest economy in the world, according to new data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bangladesh and India were the only two South Asian countries considered to be part of the 50 largest economies of the world. The data can be seen in a visualized statistic published by the Visual Capitalist with data from the IMF, the 50 largest economies were responsible for the $100 trillion world economy. This testament stands as a shining marker on the part of the country’s leader Honourable Prime Minister (HMP) Sheikh Hasina, who led the country to the part of unprecedented development over the space of last twelve years since she has been leading the country with international leading outlets likes Wall Street Journal calling the country as a “economic bull case” in South Asia.

The government has taken eight decisions to slash expenses and control commodity prices, including stepping up efforts to balance out the energy crisis with a 25% reduction in the use of electricity in public offices. The decisions also included reducing fuel expense allocation for government officers by 20% according to media reports. According to new set of rules, all ministries and offices under them will determine procedures to cut down on power and fuel consumption while all government offices have to reduce using power by 25%. This move coincides with HPM Sheikh Hasina’s stance to put in place some austerity measures aiming to keep the economy grow amid the headwinds emanating from the ongoing situation in Ukraine.

Buoyed up with a resounding achievement as the export earnings hit $50 billion mark for the first time this year despite the pandemic, Bangladesh now has set an ambitious target to take the export earnings to $67 billion in the coming year. Of these, $58 billion will come from goods exporting and $9 billion from the service sector. The government set goods export target for FY23 at $58.0 billion, which is 11.36% higher than the real export earnings of the last fiscal year (2021-22). Besides, the export target from the services sector for the FY23 has been fixed at $9.0 billion which is 12.50% higher than the actual earnings from the services sectors in the last fiscal year.

Foreign investors will be increasingly interested in considering Bangladesh as a better place for investment, with the Padma Bridge expanding connectivity both within the country and beyond and improving supply chains, said the Nordic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) in Bangladesh. The 6.51-kilometre bridge, which cost $3.6 billion, over the Padma river connects the southwestern region to the capital and the Asian Highway Network and Trans Asia Railway Network. Meanwhile, the government is planning a raft of measures to take steps so that interested holidaymakers can enjoy the beauty of the mighty river and the bridge alike with installation of all state of the art amenities.