ABSTRACT
The chapter reviews Bangladesh’s preparedness for graduation from the least developed country (LDC) group, given the country’s level of structural transformation. The main analysis focuses on whether the existing graduation criteria is addressing the structural handicaps of the country during the pre-graduation period, and whether the structural transformation achieved so far is adequate to sustain the momentum of development following graduation. In order to understand the progress in terms of structural change, Bangladesh’s productivity performance is compared against four of its major export competitors’ − India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Pakistan. Bangladesh has the lowest level of productivity among the five competing economies and the gap of labour productivity has widened over time. Given the country’s performance in terms of export diversification and macroeconomic stability, Bangladesh is heading towards graduation with a benchmark condition which is significantly behind those of the other competing economies. Further analysis in the chapter exhibits that sustainable growth in productivity and macroeconomic stability have more significant effects on structural change than the three graduation criteria of the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UN ECOSOC) – gross national income (GNI) per capita, the Human Assets Index (HAI) and the Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI). Therefore, while Bangladesh is moving towards graduation from the LDC group, it has a long way to go to make its development and productivity growth sustainable in the long run.
