Comment by Riaz Haq on March 12, 2021 at 7:06pm

After 13 quarters of gdp decline, #Modi is putting lipstick on a pig but the fact is India is now behind even #Bangladesh . Meanwhile, #India’s #Hindutva leaders are more concerned about who Indians marry rather than why they are not working. #Islamophobia
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/pm-modi-can-put-lipstic...

by Aakar Patel


The problem did not begin with Covid; it existed much before that. Growth began declining from January 2018 and has declined sequentially, meaning every quarter since then. The government has tried to tweak some of the numbers, something that Americans refer to as “putting lipstick on a pig” but to no avail. It is sequential decline over three years. The India growth story is over and has been over for a few years now. You can make all the speeches you want but you cannot argue against 39 straight months of slowing.

Speaking loudly of competing with China and America but then falling behind even Bangladesh’s per capita GDP does not inspire confidence. The fact is that even without the lockdown we were in crisis, a word that is used loosely but can be said to be accurate here. The government has no idea why the economy began to stall from January 2018. There are theories from the outside, but they are not discussed or debated in government — who will tell the King that his rule is incompetent? Nobody, unless they want to lose their head (or at least their job) and so we continue to bumble on, along the same path that has brought us to this disaster.

The signs of our decay are all around us. Work that has left China because of Trump’s trade war and Covid has not come to India but to Vietnam and Bangladesh. Our neighbour has crept ahead of us in per capita GDP because its exports (powered by high-labour intensive garment manufacturing) are growing while ours have not grown since 2014. We have six years of zero growth in exports. It is also ahead because it has much higher participation of women in the labour force.

In India, the patriarchy is more concerned about who Indians marry rather than why they are not working. India is the most dangerous place for women in the world. According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation World’s Most Dangerous Countries for Women, we were at fourth place in 2011 and then fell to last place in 2018, where presumably we remain. The low participation of women in the workforce has many complex reasons, but the failure of the State and indeed the inability of this current government to stop the slide further, is also responsible.

We have more of the same to look forward to in 2021. We will not see the economy pick up but we will see more bombast from the government about how well we are doing. The enormous hole in the economy that was created in the first quarter of last year (April-June) because of the lockdown will have been filled over the last few months. When results for the same quarter year on year appear sometime in the middle of 2021, Modi will exclaim that we are the world’s fastest growing economy and pretend that the 25% increase is not just the filing up of a hole he himself created but some miracle he has delivered to the Indian economy.


The Economist reported that Mukesh Ambani’s wealth rose 350% in 2020 and Gautam Adani’s rose over 700%, but we are at record unemployment, which is hovering around the 9% mark. And it is not higher still only because many crore Indians have removed themselves from the job market. Those who are not employed and not actively looking for work are not considered unemployed. The real figure could be approaching 15% and perhaps even higher than that.

On every conceivable metric that you can think of, from bank credit growth, to automobile sale, the revelation is not only that there is no India growth story but there is a decline that has set us back years, perhaps a decade. And yet the triumphalism carries on.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 19, 2021 at 7:44am

Finland world’s happiest country; India 139th, between Sierra Leone & Burundi
World Happiness Report, now in its ninth year, places Denmark in second place, followed by Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands

https://thefederal.com/news/finland-worlds-happiest-country-india-a...

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than two million lives so far, has had little effect on the ranking of the world’s happiest countries, with Finland taking the No 1 spot for a fourth straight year, an annual UN-sponsored report said on Friday.

Once again European nations dominated the top spots; the World Happiness Report, now in its ninth year, placed Denmark in second place, followed by Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands. New Zealand, which fell one place to ninth, was again the only non-European nation in the Top 10.

The report used Gallup data asking people in 149 countries to rate their happiness. India was at 139th position. Only Burundi, Yemen, Tanzania, Haiti, Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan were classed as unhappier than India.


Among India’s neighbours, China was at 84th position, Nepal at 87th position, Bangladesh at 101st, Pakistan at 105th, Myanmar at 126th and Sri Lanka at 129th.

The report took into account measures such as GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption to give each nation a happiness score, which is an average of the past three years. But unlike in the past, this year the index included surveys on how countries have dealt with the pandemic.

This year’s report was faced with a unique challenge in trying to understand what effect the pandemic has had on subjective well-being and vice versa, the report said. Of all the factors usually supporting happiness, the most important for explaining COVID-19 death rates were people’s trust in each other, and confidence in their governments, it said.

The report said it was “no surprise” Finland once again took the top spot. It has always ranked very high on the measures of mutual trust that have helped to protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemic, it said.

The report quoted one of its authors, Jeffrey Sachs, as saying: “We need urgently to learn from COVID-19. The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to cooperate, and the difficulties of achieving cooperation in each country and globally. The World Happiness Report 2021 reminds us that we must aim for wellbeing rather than mere wealth, which will be fleeting indeed if we don’t do a much better job of addressing the challenges of sustainable development.”

https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2021/

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 19, 2021 at 11:32am

Bangladesh up 6 notches on happiness index

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/03/19/bangladesh-up-6-...

Bangladesh has moved up six notches on the Happiness Index, ahead of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.

According to World Happiness Report 2021 Bangladesh was ranked 102nd among 150 countries of the world, while India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar placed 140th, 106th, 130th, and 127th, respectively.

Nepal and Maldives ranked higher than Bangladesh, with Nepal ranked 88th and Maldives 90th.

Bangladesh ranked the 108th happiest last year.

Finland, for the fourth straight time, was declared as the happiest country while Afghanistan came out at the bottom of the annual list prepared from data compiled by the Gallup World Poll.


The other two Scandinavian nations, Iceland and Denmark, ranked 2nd and 3rd while Switzerland and the Netherlands came in fourth and fifth positions.

The US moved up from 18th to 14th place and the UK dropped from 13th to 18th. Australia held its 12th place position.

The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being, including income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support, and generosity.

Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, however, The World Happiness Report 2021 was assembled slightly differently.

This year, the researchers focused on the relationship between wellbeing and Covid-19 to ensure the countries are judged in light of the new normal.

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 26, 2021 at 7:30am

#India is running out of money, Mr. #Modi. Embrace foreign #debt.Indian public sector banks were already struggling with the problem of unrealized loans, and the #COVID19 #pandemic was about to make that situation a lot worse. #economy #infrastructure https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/India-is-running-out-of-money-Mr.-M...

Like many central banks around the world, the Reserve Bank of India has pumped liquidity into the country's banking sector to help prevent an economic collapse brought about by COVID-19.

Since India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown in March, the RBI has released around $50 billion in a bid to shore up bank liquidity, helping to avert imminent disaster. Indian public sector banks were already struggling with the problem of unrealized loans, and the pandemic was about to make that situation a lot worse. Recapitalizing the banking sector was a step in the right direction.

Now, as India shifts from the emergency phase to the recovery phase, Modi needs to consider his policy options carefully. For the first time in decades, India's economy is expected to contract. The private sector is no longer optimistic about the future and is unlikely to add much when it comes to long term investment. That means the onus to stimulate the economy will fall on the government, and an obvious way to do that is by kick-starting upstream infrastructure projects, which can have a positive spillover effect for the rest of the economy.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, every dollar invested in infrastructure can earn up to 20 cents more in economic returns. For infrastructure deficient countries like India, the return will almost certainly be higher. Modi has put faith in an old Keynesian experiment. During the Great Depression, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program included the launch of countless public works projects that helped to modernize America's infrastructure, created millions of jobs, and infused a sense of optimism that pulled the U.S. out of depression. Could such an experiment work for India?

Well, not if there is no money to finance it. Modi has promised to spend a whopping $1.4 trillion on infrastructure. But where will all that money come from? For now, the government of India is relying more on mobilizing resources at home. In May, it sold $4 billion worth of bonds. But they were mostly bought by state-run banks and financial institutions.

Three months later, India received $24.6 billion in dividends from the RBI. And here is the problem. The more money banks lend to the state, the less there is for business. Borrowings by the government and state-run companies are now set to exceed 13% of gross domestic product. Anecdotal evidence suggests that bank managers are increasingly reluctant to approve loans to small and medium sized enterprises. That is a shame. The private sector is the backbone of a healthy economy, making up 75% of total investment demand.

Banks, therefore, need to be adequately capitalized to meet regulatory requirements. Simply monetizing the debt by printing more money is not the answer. What India needs to do now is to look outside. On the bright side, India's external debt is not a cause for concern, with an external debt to GDP ratio of about 20%, among the lowest in the region.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 9, 2021 at 5:54pm

Pakistan has potential to push annual exports upto $88.1 bn: World Bank

https://www.app.com.pk/business/pakistan-has-potential-to-push-annu...

https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/884b60a84f16362376215acef470fb...


Given Pakistan’s observable characteristics in terms of economic size, level of development, remoteness, and factor endowments, it is estimated that Pakistan’s potential annual exports are at US$ 88.1 billion, about 4 times the actual current level, World Bank said in its recent report “Pakistan Development Update”.

This large gap between actual and potential exports, or “missing exports,” places Pakistan among the top quartile of the distribution of countries with missing exports. Were Pakistan’s exporters to tap into that potential, the resulting export-to-GDP ratio would place the country at around the middle of the distribution of countries according to export orientation. To reach that point, Pakistan’s exports would need to grow at the same rate as Vietnam’s for 10 years, or Bangladesh’s for 13 years.

The report said that the opportunity cost of Pakistan’s “missing exports” is estimated at 893,000 jobs and US$ 1.74 billion in foregone taxes. Of these, 152,000 jobs could be created in the agriculture export sector, and 741,000 jobs could be created in the
manufacturing export sector.

While some of these jobs could be newly created, others may imply the reallocation of labor from relatively lower productivity, domestic-oriented firms, to higher productivity, export-oriented firms.

In terms of foregone tax revenue, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that realizing the export potential would bring an additional US$ 1.74 billion in direct tax revenues annually, taking into account Pakistan’s value added share in gross exports, as well as the implicit direct tax rate across sectors.

The report added that since the turn of the century, Pakistan has become a more inward-oriented economy. A long-term examination of export performance reveals structural stagnation.

In 1990, Pakistani firms served 0.19 percent of the world’s imports. By 2019, they served only 0.12 percent—a nearly 40-percent decline in their market share. As a share of the economy, exports stood at 16 percent of GDP in 1999, but less than 10 percent in 2020.

To tap into the export potential, Pakistan needs to upgrade its trade policy framework. Specifically, it needs to reduce the anti-export bias of tariff policy. This entails gradually reducing import duties across the board, as well as reducing the extent of the cascading by applying larger import duty cuts to final goods relative to intermediates and raw materials.

Analysis shows that protecting the domestic market through high rates of import duties, as the ones observed in Pakistan, comes at the expense of missing out in terms of exports, because it incentivizes firms to sell domestically rather than to export.

The high levels of protection observed in Pakistan carry a high opportunity cost in terms of export-oriented jobs lost, and a higher productivity path the economy could undertake.

Second the government needs to reorient trade enhancement schemes. Currently, schemes such as those put forward in Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) 711(I) 2018, provide support to exporters that reach destinations with low export potential and low
dynamism, thus not leading to an effective and efficient allocation of scarce public funds.

High-potential Asian destinations should be targeted rather than low potential African, Latin American, or Pacific Islands ones.

Thirdly the Pakistan government needs to negotiate market access with high potential destinations. Central Asian republics are a high potential for Pakistan, because of high missing exports to those countries, and because of their import dynamism.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 10, 2021 at 7:11pm

Year 2007 marked the beginning of “#democracy” fever led by the lawless lawyers of #Lahore in #Pakistan. Then came the country’s lost decade under corrupt dynastic rule of #ppp and #pmln. Result: Pakistan's per capita income lags #India, #EmergingMarkets http://www.riazhaq.com/2014/06/civilian-democracy-vs-military.html

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1381066500824465408?s=20

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 31, 2021 at 6:16pm

#Bangladesh GDP per capita has risen 9% last year, rising to $2,227, making it richer than #India & #Pakistan. Pak per capita income is $1,543. India’s per capita income is $1,947. Bangladesh #exports have grown at 8.6% every year vs 0.4% global average. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-31/india-and-pak...


India — eternally confident about being the only South Asian economy that matters — now must grapple with the fact that it, too, is poorer than Bangladesh in per capita terms. India’s per capita income in 2020-21 was a mere $1,947.

Don’t hold your breath expecting India to acknowledge Bangladesh’s success: Right-wing figures in India are convinced Bangladesh is so destitute that illegal migrants from there are overrunning the border. In reality, Bangladesh is far richer than the depressed Indian states where Hindu nationalist politicians have been railing against Bangladeshi “termites.” It’s as if Mississippi were fretting about illegal immigration from Canada.

Perhaps that explains why Indian social media exploded with indignation and denial when the GDP numbers were announced. Meanwhile, Bangladeshi media have made little of the comparison. That’s the sort of self-confidence that comes from growing consistently.
-----------


Bangladesh’s growth rests on three pillars: exports, social progress and fiscal prudence. Between 2011 and 2019, Bangladesh’s exports grew at 8.6% every year, compared to the world average of 0.4%. The success is largely due to the country’s relentless focus on products, such as apparel, in which it possesses a comparative advantage.

Meanwhile, the share of Bangladeshi women in the labor force has consistently grown, unlike in India and Pakistan, where it has decreased. And Bangladesh has maintained a public debt-to-GDP ratio between 30% and 40%. India and Pakistan will both emerge from the pandemic with public debt close to 90% of GDP. Fiscal restraint has allowed Bangladesh’s private sector to borrow and invest.

Bangladesh’s success brings its own set of problems. For one, its exports benefit from the country’s participation in various mechanisms that allow tariff-free access to developed economies, such as the U.S.’s Generalized System of Preferences. These groupings are only open to the world’s least developed countries. Thanks to its growth, Bangladesh will likely have to give up these privileges by 2026 or so.

As its economy matures, its comparative advantages will also change. Like Vietnam and others, it will then have to shift emphasis away from garments to higher-value exports. The transition will test Bangladesh as it has those other nations.

The government needs a strategy for the next decade that focuses on new forms of global integration and on a continued transformation of the economy.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 12, 2021 at 6:07pm

#Pakistan pins hopes on #export-oriented industries, #agriculture and #housing sector for sustainable growth. Keen to promote exports and take their volume from 8% at present to 20% of Gross Domestic Product (#GDP) in coming years. #economy #Budget2021 https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/pakistan-pins-hopes-on-agricu...

Addressing a joint post-budget press conference in Islamabad on Saturday, federal minister for finance Shaukat Tarin said the government has presented a growth-oriented budget that also includes relief measures to businessmen, investors, exporters, farmers and common man.

Federal Minister for Industries Khusro Bukhtiar, advisor to the Prime Minister on commerce Razak Dawood, special assistant to the Prime Minister on poverty alleviation and social protection Dr Sania and Federal Board of Revenue chairman Asim Ahmed were also present at the press conference and clarified various aspects of the budget.

Exports share in GDP

Tarin said the government is keen to promote exports and take their volume from eight per cent at present to 20 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in coming years. ”We have suggested various steps to promote exports that would help reduce pressure on the foreign exchange reserves, besides developing the local industrial sector,” he said.

The minister said the special economic zones being set up under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor would also help in local industrial development and create job opportunities for the skilled and semi-skilled work force.

Agri sector development

Tarin said the government has proposed special initiatives for the development of agriculture sector and prosperity of farming community in the country.

“We accords special attention to small land holders up to 12.5 acres and will extend up to Rs450,000 interest-free loans to enhance agriculture production and alleviate poverty. We have also mobilised banking sector to extend credit facilities to growers at affordable rates,” he said.

“Every farming household would be provided Rs250,000 interest free loan for purchasing agriculture inputs. Another Rs200,000 will be provided to purchase tractor and other machinery to bring innovation and technological advancement in local agriculture sector,” he added.

The finance minister said development of marketing services, cold storage facilities and building strategic reserves of food commodities would also help curb the menace of hoardings, artificial shortage of food commodities and practice of extra profiteering.

Growth-oriented budget

Tarin, who presented PTI’s fourth budget on Friday, said the main focus of the growth-oriented budget is to empower the country’s poor segment so that they would not have to wait for trickle-down effect of economic progress.

“The government is directly targeting the poorest of the poor and facilitating them with different initiatives to upgrade their living standards. It would utilise the ‘bottom-up-approach’ for improving the living conditions of around six million low-income households,” the minister said.

Under the initiative, Tarin said every urban household would be provided Rs500,000 interest-free business loan. Likewise, every farming household would be given interest free loan of Rs150,000 for every crop, interest fee farming loan of Rs250,000 and interest free loan of Rs200,000 for buying tractor and agricultural implements.

“Low-interest loans of up to Rs2 million would be provided to help the people buy houses, besides Sehat Card to every household to facilitate them in time of need,” Tarin said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 25, 2021 at 2:11pm

#Bangladesh to go into nationwide hard #lockdown from Monday June 28, 2021. The daily #COVID #infection rate rose to 21.22%, up from 15% a week ago. #DeltaVariant #India https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2021/06/25/bangladesh-goes-...

All offices will remain closed; no one will be allowed to leave home without emergency


Amid the dramatic surge in coronavirus infections, Bangladesh is going into a nationwide hard lockdown from Monday (June 28) for seven days.

In a notification on Friday, the Information Ministry said that all government and private offices, except for emergency services will remain closed during the lockdown.

All kinds of transports, except for those carrying emergency supplies, will remain suspended, it said before adding ambulances and vehicles used for healthcare services and media will be exempted from the curbs.

No one will be allowed to leave home without emergency purposes.

The Cabinet Division will issue a detailed notification on Saturday, reads the notice by the ministry’s Press Information Department.


The announcement comes after the national Covid-19 advisory panel on Thursday recommended imposing a nationwide shutdown for two weeks, with all kinds of offices remained closed.

Soon after the panel made the recommendation, State Minister for Public Administration Farhad Hossain told the media that they were all set to impose a complete shutdown any time.

As Covid-19 cases kept growing at an alarming rate since mid-March this year, the government was forced to impose a nationwide lockdown for one week from April 5 to contain the spread.

Later, a stricter set of restrictions on public movement and gathering were extended several times, including the latest one till July 15.

Additionally, the authorities across the country has been imposing district-wise restriction on public movement in areas with higher Covid-19 infections till now.


But now, with the fresh directive, a strict lockdown will take place across the nation.

On Friday, the death toll from Covid-19 rose by 108, the second highest single-day jump since the pandemic unfolded last year in Bangladesh.

The caseload surged by 5,869 to 878,804, according to the latest government data. The daily infection rate rose to 21.22%, up from 15% a week ago.

Amid the dramatic surge in infections, public experts fear that the pandemic in Bangladesh could take a catastrophic turn.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 30, 2021 at 8:44pm

Could #China’s model of growth be its biggest global #export ? #Beijing’s reluctance to define its "model" makes it difficult for others to follow. It prefers alternatives such as “Chinese path”, “Chinese experience”, “Chinese wisdom” & “Chinese approach” https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3139351/could-chi...



The Chinese model gained favour as Africa wearied of the free-market capitalism and deregulation that characterised Western-style neoliberalism.
The failure of neoliberal economic policies in fostering social and economic development across the continent has caused political reorientations in Africa
Tim Zajontz
Tim Zajontz, a research fellow at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, said China positioned its model as an alternative to Western-style democracy, which became a source of inspiration for other African countries such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania.
“The failure of neoliberal economic policies in fostering social and economic development across the continent has caused political reorientations in Africa, with China’s economic trajectory frequently being invoked as a viable alternative development model,” Zajontz said.
Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the New York-based Asia Society’s Centre on US-China relations, agreed. “China has provided a successful authoritarian developmental model that has worked at home, and is thus seductive to other developing countries that have had difficulty organising their body politics, catalysing their economies with growth and keeping social order. The ‘China model’ has produced economic progress … if people are willing to live in an authoritarian, even totalitarian political environment. There is a trade-off,” Schell said.

China’s Ethiopian ambitions suffer setback with telecoms decision
29 May 2021
However, as Beijing pulls out all the stops to mark the centenary of the ruling party’s establishment on July 1, there is still no consensus on what the China model actually is.
Just over a decade ago after the global financial crisis in 2008, the Chinese government even refused to acknowledge the existence of such a model, or weigh in on the discussions about whether the China model was reality or just something possible.
Instead, a number of retired officials, including former vice-president of the party’s Central Party School Li Junru, cautioned against using the term, citing its possible negative impacts on China’s relations with the world and its domestic development.
In a commentary on Study Times, the school’s flagship newspaper, in December 2009, Li said the notion of China model was factually incorrect and dangerous because it led to “self-satisfaction and blind optimism” and tended to stereotype the country’s ongoing reform experiment.
The ‘China model’ has produced economic progress … if people are willing to live in an authoritarian, even totalitarian political environment
Orville Schell
In the decade since, a group of Chinese academics and intellectuals have also questioned the validity of the Chinese model. Renowned economists Zhang Weiying and Wu Jinglian warned against promoting it, saying it would undermine reform at home and fuel divide and confrontation with the West. Tsinghua University historian Qin Hui argued in 2010 that unlike the rise of China, the rise of the China model, featuring a low level of human rights and welfare, was by no means good news for the country and the world.
It was not until after President Xi Jinping took office in late 2012 that the “China model” finally won official blessing.
“With the rise of China’s national strength and global standing, discussions and studies on the ‘Beijing consensus’, ‘Chinese model, and ‘Chinese road’ have gathered pace in the world,” Xi told senior party cadres at an internal meeting in January 2013.

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