Executive Forum 2001
Montreux, Switzerland
26-29 September 2001

Interviews

In favour of public-private partnership for results
Suhel Ahmed Choudhury, Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Bangladesh

Choudhury: The Export Promotion Bureau is not working very well. I suppose it has been because there has not been the structure in the last two decades or so. Export promotion is not a static thing. There is a kind of evolution, and the world scenario is changing fast. However, we have not made any serious exercise to change the Export Promotion Bureau to suit modern needs. There is perhaps a need for a major restructuring.

On the other side, it is not perhaps a good idea to assign a single bureau for all products. Take RMG, ready-made garments: 67 percent of our exports. The Export Promotion Bureau has to give a lot of its time for RMG. RMG 20 years back, even 15 years back, was a new product. Now RMG is very much a traditional product. I don’t think we can very well attend to the new products mainly because it is fully involved with the traditional products.

We have a plan to establish an apparel board. Then perhaps we can take away the RMG totally and devote to other products like the leather sector, frozen food and others. This might be a good attempt to reorganize the Export Promotion Bureau.

But apart from the establishment of a new board like the apparel board, we should also look into other areas where the EPB is lacking, particularly it might in the introduction of new technology, training or infusion of new blood.

Choudhury: I suppose we have seen good progress over the years in the sector but we have not really gone for value addition very seriously. This is an area where we could do much better. There has been talk of backward linkage industries. We have had some success in the case of knitwear, about 80 percent using local fabrics. But in the case of woven garments our achievement is not that good, 15-20 percent, which means that over 80 percent of our woven fabric is imported from outside. Here is an area where we can add value addition.

We might go for the medium end of the market. Now our main target is the lower end of the market. If we go for the upper end, we will get more export income. This could be our two-pronged strategy in this sector.

Frankly speaking, we are not expecting big growth. We would be very happy if we could stabilize our exports and expect normal growth. But I suppose the changing scenario might make it difficult for us.

Choudhury: That’s right, and particularly the expiry of the MFN regime after 2004. Industry in Bangladesh is extremely apprehensive about the Chinese entry into a quota-free market beyond the year 2004, and a lot of people are apprehending a doomsday scenario. We really don’t know what is going to happen, but there is a serious concern both within the public sector as well as in the private sector.

Choudhury; There are various models like the Mexican model where a bank and the TPO have a combined function but I don’t think we should be looking into those models seriously. I think if we can get good public and private sector participation, this might give us a better result. Public sector organizations are known for their inefficiency and obviously the delivery of services is not thought commendable. If we can have a mixture of the two, and if we can come up with a workable solution, we should try that. But I think it is rather early. We are thinking of changing the role of the Export Promotion Bureau in the sense that from now on they should be trying to improve their efficiency, be more professional in their outlook. Once we can achieve some re-organization of the EPB, and perhaps add fresh blood, that could be a new beginning. Eventually perhaps shifting to public-sector/private-sector participation.

Bangladesh already has some very active trade organizations such as the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers’ Association..

Choudhury: Some of our trade associations have been playing a very effective role, like the BGMA. In the last three or four months I have received several delegations from the BGMA and three or four others in the same textile sector, and they have been pressing us to take certain decisions. I would say this has worked well. When they come to use to get support from the government it is not always easy, particularly when there is more than one Ministry involved, and inter-agency co-ordination in the public sector is not very good. I would say that it is working fairly well. But it may not be the case with all other sectoral associations, because in some cases people are more busy doing some PR exercises instead of really going for trade promotion.