angladesh is yet to make any substantive progress in improving its position in the global competitiveness index (GCI). This is indicated by the latest report of the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) on the GCI issue that covers a wide range of variables. During the last four consecutive years Bangladesh's position in the global competitiveness table hovered between 108 and 118 and its score remained virtually unchanged. The variations in its positions had been mainly due to the increase and decrease in the number of countries included for assessment by the WEF. Pakistan is the only country that has fallen far behind Bangladesh. But Nepal and Bhutan have recorded considerable progress and Bangladesh now trails far behind them as far as the measurement of global competitiveness is concerned.
It is difficult to know how seriously the Bangladesh policymakers are taking the GCI which assesses the competitiveness landscape of a large number of countries providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The latest global competitiveness index published by the WEF is the 35th one of its kind and it has laid emphasis on innovation and skills as the key drivers of economic growth. Bangladesh, according to the assessment made by the GCR, has made some improvement in areas of infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, higher education and training, efficiency level in commodity market, sensitivity of the financial market and innovativeness during the period under review. But its performance in some areas, including health and primary education, labour market efficiency and financial market sensitiveness, has showed signs of deterioration.
Going by the level of improvement of different indicators that are taken into consideration while preparing the GCI, it can be safely concluded that the administration in Bangladesh do not attach the due importance to the WEF's global competitiveness reports. In fact such reports are viewed as just as an addition to hundreds of others published annually by international organisations. But it has never dawned on the government that a comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness done annually from the competitive global perspective, provides a very useful platform for its dialogue with businesses and civil society about actions required to improve economic prosperity.
The factors that are standing on the way of raising the level of the country's ability to compete at the global level better are many in numbers and very much known to all concerned. In fact the number of negative factors, which are political, economic and societal in nature, is more than that of many other countries. There are hurdles that can be removed or effectively reduced if the authorities mean business and deploy sufficient time and money. But graft and poor governance have been identified, time and again, as major obstacles to achieving that objective. Despite repeated calls from businesses and civil society, the country's political leadership has utterly failed to build strong national institutions to ensure transparency, accountability and fair play at all levels of national life. The failure is apparently deliberate to gain narrow political and economic advantages of the people who remain in power from time to time.
