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Along with rampant corruption and an inefficient bureaucracy, businessmen have identified crime and a poorly educated workforce as the two big impediments for business in Bangladesh.

These impediments also imply loss of confidence in government functionaries as well as the parliament, revealed the report on “Business Competitiveness Environment in Bangladesh: 2004” on Wednesday.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue, a research organisation, formally disclosed the findings of the perception survey carried out as a part of the Global Competitiveness Report 2004. Debapriya Bhattacharya, CPD executive director, presented the survey conducted on 100 companies with assets worth over Tk 10 crore each.

The survey revealed that poor education is a major stumbling block for building up efficient human resources.

It ranked the inadequately educated workforce as the seventh leading factor of competitiveness environment in Bangladesh. The workforce factor was ranked ninth last year.

“This means that businessmen are now expressing their concern over the poor quality of education,” said Debapriya, explaining the findings. “In fact, the findings show that the existing education system is not adequate to meet the needs of a competitive economy.”

The businessmen admitted of spending little on research and development and cited non-availability of funds or lack of government subsidies as the main reason. They also put stress on the large gap between the quality of health services for the rich and the poor.

Although the survey identified corruption and inefficient bureaucracy as the two leading determinants, it found that complaints on policy instability and tax regulations had come down.

The survey showed that businessmen’s mistrust of corrupt politicians and dissatisfaction at the government’s incompetence has increased in 2004.

Of the respondents, 80 per cent believe that the national parliament is highly ineffective.
Again, 91 per cent alleged that the government officials favoured well-connected firms and individuals for policies and contracts.

Confidence in public institutions like the judiciary and the police also diminished in 2004, according to the survey.

Although the businessmen expressed dissatisfaction over infrastructure services like electricity, railway, shipping and port facilities, they admitted that there was a slight improvement in some of these areas.

The top business executives believe that key industries were becoming more dominated by big players and the quality of business environment was not uniform across the country.

Summing up the findings, Debapriya said the country’s businessmen were trying to move forward despite hindrances, mostly caused by the government’s inefficiency and corruption. “So, the message is that favourable state policies will help increase the business competitiveness of the country.”