Bangladesh is Driving Past Pakistan. A Temporary Paradox or Steady Tendency of Socio-economic Development?

Speedy economic growth of Bangladeshi economy is analyzed in the article simultaneously with slower development in Pakistan. It is noted that in the beginning of the 1970s when Bangladesh separated from Pakistan the newly born country was lagging behind. The author dwells on the reasons of the breakaway growth in Bangladesh such as rise in literacy, employment and empowering women as well as increase of industrial exports especially of ready-made garments. Another cause of the Bangladeshi success story has been the mushroom growth of microcredit through institutions like BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) and Grameen (Rural) Bank. Credits helped to partially uplift overpopulated and desperately poor rural areas and contributed to improvement in standards of living although Bangladesh’s per capita income is still less than that of Pakistan.

Discussing Pakistan’s growth, the author underlines enormous amount of budget funds traditionally assigned to the military. Spending on various military services in the 1970s through 1990s exceeded social expenditures by 2-3 times. Pakistan demonstrated moderate increase of literacy, especially among women, and has not gone through the changes in basic social conditions which has enabled Bangladesh to slow down rates of demographic growth. In spite of Pakistan’s larger resources its economic future remains vague. Bangladesh has an edge in the short run but its further development relies heavily on external factors such as world market conditions for its export oriented industries. Forthcoming socio-economic dynamics in both countries depends on the combination of home and foreign factors which is difficult to predict.

Keywords

Bangladesh, Pakistan, economy, social sphere, literacy, ready-made garments industry, state of women

Received

21.04.2019

Publication date

29.04.2019

Number of characters

32148

Cite

GOST	Belokrenitsky V. Bangladesh is Driving Past Pakistan. A Temporary Paradox or Steady Tendency of Socio-economic Development? // Asia and Africa Today – 2019. – Issue 4 C. 9-16 [Electronic resource]. URL: https://asaf-today.ru/S032150750004377-6-1 (circulation date: 26.04.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S032150750004377-6
MLA	Belokrenitsky, Vyacheslav Ya "Bangladesh is Driving Past Pakistan. A Temporary Paradox or Steady Tendency of Socio-economic Development?." Asia and Africa Today 4 (2019):9-16. DOI: 10.31857/S032150750004377-6
APA	Belokrenitsky V. (2019). Bangladesh is Driving Past Pakistan. A Temporary Paradox or Steady Tendency of Socio-economic Development?. Asia and Africa Today (4), pp.9-16 DOI: 10.31857/S032150750004377-6

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