Rice Stock Woe

Low rice stock in disaster year
Causes concern and fear.

Recently a news report published on a leading daily laid bare holes in our food security. According to the report, government's stock of rice is lowest in 13 years. Government has stored only 311,000 tons of rice at a moment when it needs to provide support for COVID-19 stricken vulnerable population group (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 24,2021). What is interesting in that report is that government itself is failing to keep pace with its anticipated stock of rice. It planned to stock 1 million tons of rice in government storage facilities across the country. But it managed to store only 311,000 tons.

It is indeed interesting that just a year ago Bangladesh was ranked by third largest rice producing country in the world by an institution. There is indeed truth in it. This success is largely driven by Boro, which is our biggest crop. Currently Boro harvest is going on. Once it is done we will see slight improvement in government's storing of rice. In 2012, our total foodgrain production was 36.83 million tons of which Boro accounts 18.76 million tons. In 2019, total foodgrain production was 41.57 million tons of which Boro accounts for 19.62 million tons(Source: BER 2019). Boro's share in total food production is always more than 45%.

So when the Boro harvest will be completed, a definitive conclusion can be made on government's rice storage. How did we end up having lowest rice stock in a decade? Many will look for answer to this question as such a crisis was widely anticipated following twin blows from flood and cyclone Amphan a year ago.

Back in May last year, I wrote a titled "Agriculture Holds The Key" where I analyzed relationship between rice production and foodgrain import during disaster and normal years. I gathered data for import of foodgrain and rice production at home delving Bangladesh Economic Review 2018. The period under consideration was between 1996 and 2017. The model did not turn out to be significant at 5% level of significance. But it was significant at 10% level. But individual coefficients including dummy coefficient did not appear to be significant at 5% level of significance.

Though the data at hand did not lend evidence, there is no gainsaying that foodgrain import was higher during disaster years. For instance, in the flood year of 1999 we imported 5491 thousand metric ton of foodgrain. In 1998 we also witnessed a severe flood.In 2000, a calm year, we imported 2104 thousand metric ton of grain. In 2008, post Sidr year, we suffered from cyclone Reshmi and imported 3471 thousand metric ton of foodgrain. The point is if natural calamity damages our crop production, we rely heavily on foodgrain import. Some years remain as exception.

Last year was a disaster year. Even the government acknowledged that it would need more rice to sustain its social security effort next year. Government planned to import 2 million tons of rice this year, but it managed to import 1 million tons, as the news report revealed. The market price of coarse rice spiraled up and was between Tk 48 and Tk 50, sensing the lower rice stock of the government.

Government procurement of rice did not proceed as it was anticipated. Passing of blame has been going on. There is an urgent need to meet government's rice storage gap.

Another danger is with rise in price of rice the price of other substitute product is likely to rise. For instance, wheat price, which is also included in government's procurement list. In 2018-19, government set a procurement target of 728,000 metric tons of food grain. And government finally imported 267,000 tons of wheat of which 56,000 tons of rice and 211,000 tons of wheat (Source: BER 2019).

Last year a news broke out that wheat production would fall short. Key wheat producing countries even imposed ban on wheat export. However, later it turned out that wheat production was much better. As government engaged in negotiation with Russia on Covid vaccine, it should also start talks to secure import of a good amount of wheat, eschewing or compromising its ban on wheat export.

Meanwhile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar have good storage of rice. Government should redouble its effort to import rice from these countries as soon as possible.

It is bizarre that while there has been grim forecast of major foodgrain production, we have started procurement of foodgrain with much delay.

Let us remain optimistic about the ongoing Boro harvest and hope that ongoing situation does not turn worse. The pandemic has already pushed million to grinding poverty and many are finding it hard to get 3-square meal per day. At this turbulent time government needs to ramp up its program to widen food security. Procuring a mix of vital staples and ensuring its just distribution should be the prime concern.

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(16 avril --- 23 avril)

Selon un reportage, le gouvernement a plongé le confinement au cours jusqu'au 28 avril. Néanmoins, gouvernement a décidé de relâcher les conditions de confinement: ouverture de hypermarché et transport public dans la ville. Le nombre de mort depuis Covid-19 a déjà franchi le seuil de 10.000.

Selon un reportage, le nombre de mort depuis la fusillade contre une manifestation d'ouvrier dans une centrale charbonnière a augmenté à 7.

Selon un reportage,incendie dans un bâtiment à vieux Dacca a tué 4 personnes et blessé 20 personnes dont des pompiers.

Selon un reportage, une cour américaine a condamné un militant de daech,originaire du Bangladesh, à prison à vie pour avoir tenté d'exploser une gare à New York en 2017 avec une bombe artisanale.

Falling Ranking, Fading Identity

Despite sliight improvement in HPI,
Quality of nationals was better in years gone by.
Institutions care for society and human development
Disappearing fast due to shrinking fund and growing resentment.

Henley International Passport Index lifted Bangladesh a notch up for 2021. It was a slight improvement from last year when Bangladesh was ranked at 101st among 110 countries. This index measures strength of a passport in terms of its ability to move freely without any prior VISA. Henley underscored that COVID-19 restrictions did not influence its ranking (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 16,2021).

Despite the slight improvement, our passport remains weak. The weakening of our passport has been going on for the last six years. In 2013, it was ranked at 85th in HPI. In 2017, the green passport was downgraded by 10 places. In 2019, its rank was worsened further to 99. Perhaps not all the countries are buying our staggering success stories.

Like HPI, the Henley and Partners maintain the Quality of Nationality Index (QNI), conceived by Dimitry Kochenov and Christian H. Kälin. QNI ranks qualities of nationalities based on factors like economic strength, human development, ease of travel, political stability and overseas employment opportunities. In 2012, Bangladesh was placed at 129th position. In 2015, it was downgraded to 138. In 2017, it was further downgraded to 149.

Back in October,2014, I wrote a piece titled "Fading Passport, Fading Identity" where I also argued about other unpleasant measures to gauge quality of our nationals and passport .To keep the discussion brief, I refrain from bringing them back here.

Recent violences in Sylhet, Brahmanbaria , Chattogram and Dhaka reminded us how fragile our political stability is and how far we have to go in terms of human development. Trivial issues could easily be used to stir trouble and to rein in on streets. Five decades after independence,our nationals failed to devise a civilized way to manifest and to voice their concerns, to find peaceful mean to reconciliation and to find a platform to settle dispute in an amicable environment. Economic achievements may not sustain long, I am afraid, if status of our human development remains at the present level.

Education is the area where we fall behind our neighbors. In Global Knowledge Index, Bangladesh held the lowest rank in South Asia. Its position was 112th among 138 countries.Even Pakistan and Nepal were placed ahead of us (Source: Daily Star, December 12 , 2020).

In Innovation Index, Bangladesh was far behind than its South Asian neighbors. Among the 131 economies, Bangladesh occupied 116th position. It perched on that position for three consecutive years (Source: The Financial Express, September 14, 2020).

In recent years, school drop out rate, number of child marriage have also increased. I cannot figure out how we can continue our achievements in economic and development sectors with such a sorry state in education and innovation.

What complicated the matter is the presence of three different streams of education. A greater section of the population are not at the same wavelength while reading a particular event or situation and are not behaving in the right way at a crucial occasion or circumstances.

Our 14 years of schooling is not as good as others. It is casting a shadow over our overseas development markets. In middle eastern countries where our nationals mostly took up the jobs of housemaid, drivers, agricultural workers etc , Bangladeshis find themselves in awkward situation for failing to communicate in a proper manner. It is affecting their livelihoods there. Many even fall victims to deception and cheating. In Kuwait a Bangladeshi MP in connivance with Kuwaiti officials ran a human trafficking network. Thousands of Bangladeshis were lured into there traps, losing millions of Taka and risking their lives. The issue remains a sore point in the relationship between two countries and engenders overseas employment of Bangladesh in Kuwait.

Reuters last year carried a report divulging dilapidated conditions of stranded Bangladeshis , victims of human trafficking, in Bosnian jungles.

Like those cheated Bangladeshis abroad, state of our health sector does not vouch safe for our economic success story. COVID-19 laid bare the anarchy going on in this sector. Fake screening program ran by some politically-blessed quarter alarmed us about quality of our health professionals. Poorly equipped hospitals and dearth of health professionals brought us foreign grant and support in thick and fast. To our dismay, we watched that oxygen system and 300 ventilators bought with foreign credit were locked in warehouses of Dhaka International Airport for ten months. They are meant to equip the public hospitals. Meanwhile, deteriorating condition at home led to ban flights towards countries from where most of our remittances come.

With great enthusiasm and effort, Bangladesh implements infrastructure and development projects, very few turn out to be beneficial in the end. However, same vigor and enthusiasm are not displayed while creating social institutions that aim to develop human resources at the grassroot level. Tribal nature of our politics , tendency to set a yeoman at every organization are widely seen as encumbrance to developing such institution. For the last three decades, a moribund growth has been being observed on institutions that work on youth, discrimination, literacy,digital divide, communal harmony,folklore,hygiene,rural-urban migration, inclusion of new technology, charity, music and culture. These institutions in the past played key roles in churning out quality nationals. It does not mean they have to depend on foreign fund for their operations. Community, individual and government should step in so that they can function without any trouble. COVID-19 bluntly laid it bare that our health system is not working and one find morning we will discover, to our surprise, that our country becomes an unlivable prison. And HPI and QNI may coshare positions with other doomed countries.

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(09 avril --- 16 avril)

Selon un reportage, le gouvernement a imposé confinement strict à partir du 14 avril pour une semaine. Le seuil de mort a franchi 10.000. Il y a une crise de lit de réanimation dans les hôpitaux privés.

Selon un reportage, le système d'oxygène et 300 respirateurs gardent dans un entrepôt à l'aéroport de Dacca il y a 10 mois. Le ministère de la Santé n'a pas montré intérêt à les recevoir. La Banque mondiale et la Banque asienne du développement ont financé leurs achats.

Selon un reportage, envoyé spécial sur climat de président américain a opposé la construction d'une centrale charbonnière à Sundarbans, une mangrove sans pareille dans le monde.

Selon un reportage, cadavres de deux baleines se sont trouvés dans la plage de Cox's Bazar. Les scientifiques les ont identifiées comme espèce de «Brides Whale».

Some Concerns Over A Merger

Merger of two rivals on foreign shore
Leaves a market with competition no more.
Allow entry of new operator
In exchange of market access for export sector.

In recent years, competition in Bangladesh economy is gradually waning. Cellular phone service offers the apt example. Earlier we had 5 operators. Merger between Robi and GrameenPhone reduced the number into 4. Recently a news broke out that Telenor and Axiata merged their operations in Malaysia. Telenor operates GrameenPhone and Axiata operates Robi in Bangladesh. Back in 2019, the two companies hinted that they would go for a merger and form a bigger GSM service company in Asia. But the communiqué made it clear Axiata and Telenor's Bangladesh operations would not be touched by the merger decision and they would operate as two separate companies. Despite their claim, their decisions may have significant influence over the cellular phone service industry of Bangladesh.

According to Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC), there were 68.7 million subscribers in 2010, in 2019 the number rose to 157.5 million. Till January 2019, Grameenphone had 73.06 million subscribers, Banglalink had 33.69 million , Robi had 46.90 million and Teletalk had 3.88 million subscribers (Source: Bangladesh Economic Review 2019). Clearly other operators paled to insignificance besides Grameenphone's subscriber base. Following the merger with Airtel, Robi acquired greater market share too.

Despite the repeated assurance from the operators if the news becomes true, true number of operators will come down to 3. Teletalk is operated by government by the way. This clearly has consequence for government as well as for consumers.

We have seen that relations between government and operators turned sour in recent years over contested tariff, slapping of supplementary duty, termination of employee and quality of services.

As operators become disenchanted with the government, consumers bear full brunt of it. They pay higher prices for existing products and experience poor service.

Back in 2018, I wrote a piece on how a decision by government about raising the duration of smaller data pack led to increase in data pack price and undermined consumers' interest.

When Robi and Airtel merger took place, Axiata paid Tk 1 billion as fees to regulatory authority. In addition, winding up of redundant customer centers and voluntary retirement scheme were introduced to retrench cost.

It puzzled me that how two parent companies merged their businesses in somewhere else but isolate the other one in Bangladesh. No matter how convincing it sounds we have to take it with a dollop of salt. If Grameenphone and Robi exist as two different independent operators , they will offer competing products to consumers. Such competition will allow consumers to attain desirable product at affordable price. Parent company of Robi and Grameenphone has leverage to influence Bangladeshi market. The two operators may cease to offer competing products and thereby shape their anticipated profit.

Furthermore, such decision has other implications at various stages of business. One of the operators may incur loss and file for bankruptcy and shirk responsibility while parent company in Kualalumpur may sit on profits without diverting any part of it to troubled operator.

As mentioned earlier, Robi-Airtel amalgamation yielded Tk 1 billion to government coffer. Moreover, such merger required ample clearance from various branches of government. But parent company 's decision may be based on averting any regulatory intervention as such merger will give the two operators a subscriber base of 119.96 million and overwhelming dominance over the market, pushing the consumers at the mercy of operators. Moreover, declaration of a merger is likely to violate the Competition Act 2012, which was introduced to "prevent, control and eradicate collusion, monopoly, oligopoly, combination or abuse of dominant position or activities adverse to the competition "(Source: Bangladesh Competition Commission,Wikipedia).

So the statement of separate business operations might be a masquerade to eschew the issues involved in any public disclosure of merger.

No matter what the motif is Bangladesh should go for calling new operators to enter its GSM service market.

Prior to introduction of GSM service, tobacco related companies remained as biggest tax-revenue providers. Gradually mobile operators took their place. Merger news casts shadow over government's tax-revenue earnings from mobile operators. Now the biggest two operators are now in far more comfortable position to produce balance sheets that will be favorable to them, resulting in fewer corporate revenues from them.

So government has little choices to allow new entrants into this market.We have to take some strategic considerations while offering new license. We have to make sure that such lucrative license could open new doors for our goods to the uncharted territories. For instance, we may welcome operators from Africa, South America, Turkey, Russia and Japan in exchange of greater market access of Bangladeshi goods like RMG , pharmaceuticals etc. Earlier we had not done it. Now, we should not repeat the same mistake.

No matter what statement the operators trot out, we, the consumers, look askance at them. At the end of the day, consumers pay a heavy toll from their own pockets when some wayward operators are in the thick of undermining the competitive business environment. We are witnessing it with growing concerns in many other areas!

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(02 avril --- 09 avril)

Selon un reportage, la propagation de Covid-19 est devenue pire. Plus de 7.000 cas de Covid-19 ont été détectés chaque jour. Le jeudi 74 morts ont été enregistrées, le plus dans un jour. Le Center for Disease & Prevention des États-Unis a élevé le niveau de la propagation de Bangladesh à la 4ème position et a prévenu les Américains de voyager le pays. Une enquête conjointe, faite par icddr,b et le bureau de la santé, a divulgué que le variant sud-africain a ciblé de plus en plus de gens au Bangladesh.

Selon un reportage, une bande de gens inconnus ont attaqué les maisons et bureaux de conseiller et fonctionnaire de Saltha à Faridpur. Quand des policiers et une fonctionnaire avaient tenté d' imposer mesures de confinement, une bagarre a rendu violente. 30 personnes ont été blessées et 1 a été tuée.

Selon un reportage, le gouvernement a déployé mitrailleurs avec mitrailleuses dans 18 gendarmerie à Sylhet où installations publiques et gendarmeries ont été ciblées pendant manifestations d' un groupe fanatique.

Selon un reportage, un bateau a été chaviré dans un fleuve de Narayanganj après avoir percuté par un bateau-citerne. 34 personnes ont été mortes dans l'accident.

Financing The Vaccination Program

Poor record in project implementation
Worsens trouble of hospitalization.
As banks lie on idle money,
Vaccination does not need foreign penny.

As another wave of COVID-19 spreads across the country, average daily detection reaches more than 5000. Bangladesh imposed a relaxed restriction, which was opposed by petty businessmen and others. Bangladesh started its vaccination campaign from February 08. Development partners and other organizations provided soft credits to finance its vaccination program. Recently, government sought another $500 million from World Bank to finance its ongoing vaccination program (Source:https://abnews24.com/economy/124639).

Bangladesh is one of the few countries that started its vaccination program pretty early. Financial support to vaccination program came in thick and fast. But Bangladesh did pretty bad when it comes to utilization of resources in improving health facilities. In addition, corruption in implementing projects is a major encumbrance in attaining project goals.

Take for instance, installation of centralized oxygen system in key hospitals across the country.A news report says only 38 hospitals got such fully-fledged system among 79 hospitals (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 02,2021). UNICEF is implementing installation of oxygen system in 30 such hospitals. The World Bank financed project was delayed as Health Department took a long time clearing the project.UNICEF hopes to implement it by June.

Supplying uninterrupted oxygen to critically ill patients is vital when most of the ICU beds in Dhaka are filled. But delay in decision making cast shadow over its timely implementation.

This delay may not be deliberate but exposes the work culture here. This project is to some extent luckier than others. There are projects where fund has been swindled away without making any real progress in implementation.

A news report says two contractors of Chattogram City Corporation (CCC) swindled Tk 330 million without doing any work (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 04,2021). CCC awarded contracts of developing a link road leading to port and construction of a new road near Mohesh canal to two contractors identified as Rana Builders and Rana Builders-Saleh Ahmed. The two contractors took loan from UCB bank and the contract laid out that project payment would be deposited at their bank account. They earlier had taken Tk 80 million and later managed to get a cheque of Tk 250 million from CCC, violating rules of the contract. Project work came to a complete halt since then. They have not furnished any explanation on no progress in the work. The project is being financed by JICA.

Another news report says two newly built public installations --- Postal Building and National Science and Technology Complex ---have not yet been inaugurated in spite of the fact that they were completed two years ago at a cost of Tk 94 crore and Tk 314 crore respectively (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 03,2021). Government is counting money in maintaing the two building and their older premises that the occupants are reluctant to vacate in the fear of losing previous real estate and to take the hassle to go to a place far away from the secretariat.

The incidents are eye-opener and lay bare how public money is being wasted in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Bangladesh is borrowing from abroad to finance mass vaccination. A World Bank estimates show to finance 70% of total population, Bangladesh will need to spend between $1.17 and $1.92 billion (Source: Daily Prothom Alo, April 06,2021).

Bangladesh's economy is in good shape so it can afford borrowing from abroad to vaccinate a large part of its population. But our external debt is also piling up. In 2015 , our external debt was $37.27 billion and debt per head was $236.04. In 2020, external debt rose to $65.27 billion and debt per head was $389.53 (Source: Bangladesh Bank).

Gradual pile up is still not biting us but it is steadily increasing. Fall in export earnings led to widening of trade deficit, which stood at $11.79 billion in 2020-21(July-Feb). Riding on remittances our Forex reserve continues to rise. But our traditional remittance sources are not stable in the face of regional and energy challenges. This pandemic also exposes it when oil price fell below a threshold level. It is a good sign that we are optimistic about our remittance sources. But we do not how long we will remain optimistic about it. So it appears that we are little bothered to take decision on spending between $1.17 and $1.92 billion on vaccination. A remarkable development took place in our banks during pandemic when government allowed legalizing undocumented money. Bank deposits reached Tk 13 trillion. Government could go for domestic borrowing for vaccination program in a bid to ease our external debt. Since we are not honest in spending public money and implementing projects, it is far better to spend from our own resources rather than paying interest and loans over a long stretch of time.

La Semaine Dernière A Mes Yeux

(26 mars --- 02 avril)

Selon un reportage, la deuxième vague de propagation de covid-19 a ciblé le pays. Le virus a péri 52 personnes le mercredi. Chaque jour en moyenne 5.000 cas de covid-19 ont été détectés. Il y a une crise de service de réanimation à travers de pays. Le gouvernement a introduit 18 points de confinement dont 60% augmentation du prix de billets de bus et train, arrêt de service de moto-partage, interdiction de déplacement après 10 heures du soir.

Selon un reportage, des grévistes ont encore vandalisé la ville de Brahmanbaria où 3 personnes ont été tuées par balles, en faisant un bilan de 14 morts. Mais le plateforme de groupe fanatique s'est dit que 17 personnes avaient été tuées. A Brahmanbaria , 7 installations de gouvernement ont été incendiées. Un centre culturel a été attaqué. De plus, maisons de 5 dirigeants du parti en exercice ont été ciblées. 43 plaintes ont été déposées contre 20.000 personnes.

Selon un reportage, Facebook dans un communiqué s'est dit que son service a été perturbé au Bangladesh. Après deux jours de fermeture, les utilisateurs ont recommencé à utiliser Facebook.

Selon un reportage, incendie a ravagé une partie de campe de Rohingya à Ukhiya, Cox's Bazar. 3 Rohingyas ont été tués dans l'incendie.