Economist and Chief Executive
There are no exact statistics on how many small entrepreneurs in Bangladesh are currently engaged in IT and B2C e-commerce businesses. However, their numbers are increasing, and with the right policies, exports and export diversification from this sector could grow further. These small entrepreneurs mainly run their businesses using social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and F-commerce.
Pharma sector is one of our prouds as it takes care of 98% of local demand and thus saving about USD 7-8 billion of foreign currencies as per industry leaders. The domestic pharmaceutical market is about to reach USD 6 billion by 2025. The sector contributes around 1.83% of GDP. The forcast for attracting FDI is nearby USD 23 billion by 2030. However the sector is heavily import dependent, annual otflow of approximately USD 1.3 billion for Activated Pharmaceuticals Ingriedients(API) import. Export of pharma products is close to USD 200 million to 150+ countries. The sector created a huge number of white colour jobs from different Universities of Bangladesh.
EU’s Eco-design and Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) entered into force from July 2024, as a part of the package of measures for transition to circular economy. EU besets their environmental and climate goals, circularity and energy efficiency targets by 2030. For specific products, such as textiles and steel ESPR will be implementable from 2026. ESPR contains a number of new measures of which digital product passport (DPP), rules to address destruction of unsold consumer goods, green public procurement etc. For transformation process from compliance to competitiveness government ownership and private sector earnestness is imperative.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) organized a consultation meeting on Monetary Policy Statement (MPS) H1FY26 recently unveiled several elements of policy measures for the upcoming MPS. The discussion upstretched several concerns about the high policy rate for long, squeezed the credit facilities for the private sector, especially for CMSMEs, high Non-Performing Loans (NPL), sluggish investment, new investment is in wait and see while existing investment is in dilemma.
The entire nation is shocked and horrified by the tragic plane crash at Milestone School and College, raising concerns about how safe and secure their children are at schools and colleges. Judging by the scale and extent of the accident, it is needless to say that no, they are not safe at all—this incident is living proof of that. Had the incident occurred just half an hour later, many children and teenagers might have survived; but cruel fate struck just moments before they would have left for home, climbing onto the laps of their parents or guardians, chatting away. It happened precisely when the teachers, as per their daily routine, were lining them up and preparing them to return home in an orderly manner—a most unfortunate event in recent memory. In today’s newspaper, I saw a gentleman standing in a daze holding a photograph—he had found his child, but his wife who came to pick up the child was missing.
The announcement of Reciprocal Tariff (RT) on April 2, 2025 on 108 countries ranging from 11-49% by the president Donald Trump has shaken the world irrespective of size of the economy and the amount of trade deficit USA is running with the concerned countries. The trade deficit of US was USD 918.4 billion in 2024, total US exports with the rest of the world is USD 3.12 trillion and total imports were USD 4.11 trillion as per the available information. US constantly enjoying surplus in services export, which was USD 1.15 trillion, and import was 0.841 trillion in 2024. USA did not mention services export issues anywhere whereas services export throughout the world is growing and will dominate the future trade.