Article

2006-08-02 Bangladesh

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Fred 2006-08-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 It may belong to parts of Asia, but not their little corner.

Posted by DoDo 2006-08-02 00:48|| 2006-08-02 00:48|| Front Page Top

#2 Exactly, DoDo.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-08-02 04:14|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-08-02 04:14|| Front Page Top

#3 Now, now. Bangladesh will join the 21st century....probably sometime in the mid 27th century.

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2006-08-02 04:43|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com]">[http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2006-08-02 04:43|| Front Page Top

#4 A bit optimistic unless they stop marrying their cousins, SB.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-08-02 04:48|| 2006-08-02 04:48|| Front Page Top

#5 With the coming bird flu pandemic, you've got to wonder if there will be a bangladesh left in the 27th century...

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-08-02 04:53|| 2006-08-02 04:53|| Front Page Top

#6 Just like Asia was supposed to dominate in the 80s, 90s, etc.

Japan will be a economic and soon to be military power. Tiawan will be a economic power. China might or might not depending on how badly their banking system crashes and if they get in a war.
Vietnam might become semi-prospurous if the new free market reforms work.

The rest of asia will rot just like it always has.

Posted by DarthVader 2006-08-02 08:29|| 2006-08-02 08:29|| Front Page Top

#7 It will - if by 'Asia' you mean the PacRIM, ie. countries that border the Pacific.

Like the US. Australia. Japan.

But the Bangla PM is right that without real economic integration into world markets (with all that implies about cleaning up social and political corruption, and educating women, and such) they're doomed to fall farther and farther behind.

Posted by lotp 2006-08-02 08:44|| 2006-08-02 08:44|| Front Page Top

#8 The choice is Islam or development

They can't have both.. which is why Pakistan and Bangladesh are screwed

Posted by john 2006-08-02 09:21|| 2006-08-02 09:21|| Front Page Top

#9 Yet again, we have an example of cargo cult thinking.

"Hey, it's the Asian century, we're in Asia, so we're gonna be rich! - terrific, let's blow off those Indians and their damn steel works, we don't need them, we're all gonna be rich I tell ya, and all because we're in Asia!"

"Err, Mr Zia, we're in the shitty end of Asia, 10% of our country is within a metre of sea level, we have subsistence farming down to an art and we keep telling foreign firms to keep their money. How are we going to get rich?"

"Mahmoud, you dummy, we're in Asia, we're gonna be rich!"

lotp and DarthVader, I couldn't agree with you more, and Seafarious, that's just not nice! ;)

Posted by Tony (UK) 2006-08-02 09:24|| 2006-08-02 09:24|| Front Page Top

#10 Even Burma is more development oriented.. India has just signed an agreement with them for the building of a gas pipeline to supply SEZs in India.

Bangaldesh opposed the transit so no fees for them, the pipeline will go around Bangladesh.
(hundreds of millions a year in transit fees lost)

Posted by john 2006-08-02 09:29|| 2006-08-02 09:29|| Front Page Top

#11 Here is a snippet from a NY Times report

Here in Tamil Nadu state, where the changes are briskest, global corporations are already taking advantage of a shift the world has scarcely noticed.

Victoria's Secret already buys 6.5 million bras a year in this city, roughly one-tenth of its global total, from a factory its parent company, Limited Brands, invested in. Nokia just erected a high-volume factory here that it says will produce more than 30 million phones a year and account for at least one-tenth of its global output.

Hyundai Motor, which produces a new car in Tamil Nadu every minute, has made India its global hub for the Santro hatchback; it plans to ship 100,000 India-made cars to 60 nations this year, and 300,000 within two years.

"Geographically, it's close to the market, and the second thing is the very highly educated people in India," said Heung Soo Lheem, chief of India operations for Hyundai, explaining why his company had invested in the country. Thirdly, he said, "the suppliers are here - I do not say better than China, but maybe the same. And the labor costs are less than China."

In a gold rush that evokes the start of China's factory boom, multinationals like Bayerische Motoren Werke, General Motors and Intel are locking down real estate in Tamil Nadu, as are scores of little-known companies from South Korea to Italy. Outside Madras, also known as Chennai, barren grazing land that cost $1,000 an acre, or $2,500 a hectare, 20 years ago sells for up to 65 times as much today.

Within the special zones, foreign managers say, whatever fettered earlier producers is gone. "I don't know why people say it was impossible earlier," said Jukka Lehtela, the Finnish operations manager at Nokia, which operates its own special zone. "I can prove that they are wrong."

As workers nearby planted microscopic components onto circuit boards, zapped them with ion guns and snapped together $60 phones, Lehtela added: "I don't really see anything that can stop volume production here."

Posted by john 2006-08-02 09:32|| 2006-08-02 09:32|| Front Page Top

#12 Which is probably why India is speeding up the building of the 3000 km border fence to keep out the Bangladeshis

Posted by john 2006-08-02 09:33|| 2006-08-02 09:33|| Front Page Top

#13 ...India is speeding up the building of the 3000 km border fence to keep out the Bangladeshis

Gee, I wish the US had thought of that!

Posted by DarthVader 2006-08-02 09:39|| 2006-08-02 09:39|| Front Page Top

#14 Crushing poverty. No infrastructure. Backward religions that value animals over people. Lack of education. Massive overpopulation. Lack of natural resources and raw materials for industry. Yep. Soulds like a recipe for success to me.

Posted by mcsegeek1 2006-08-02 11:22|| 2006-08-02 11:22|| Front Page Top

#15 dang typos...

Posted by mcsegeek1 2006-08-02 11:23|| 2006-08-02 11:23|| Front Page Top

#16 Case in point HERE. Get a clue, Indians. That's what GUNS are for.

Posted by mcsegeek1 2006-08-02 11:52|| 2006-08-02 11:52|| Front Page Top

#17 Monkeys, why do they hate us ?

Posted by wxjames 2006-08-02 14:40|| 2006-08-02 14:40|| Front Page Top

#18 Indians are averse to killing of animals so they won't shoot the errant monkeys.

With 8% economic growth sustainable for at least two decades, and 26% annual growth in manufacturing, it will make substantial progress in reducing poverty.

Bangladesh and Pakistan will have to hitch their rides on the Indian economic engine if they hope to progress - but will they ?

Or will the call of islam triumph?

Posted by john 2006-08-02 17:12|| 2006-08-02 17:12|| Front Page Top

#19 Compare East Bengal (Bangladesh) with West Bengal (India) which has just landed this 20 billion dollar FDI

KOLKATA: In the biggest-ever foreign direct investment in infrastructure development in the country, the West Bengal government on Monday inked a landmark deal worth a whopping Rs 40,000 crore with the Indonesia-based Salim Group.

The deal is a major success for the reforms poster boy, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. Under the pact, a 100-km expressway linking Kukrahati in East Midnapore district with Raichak in South 24-Parganas, a clutch of ultra-modern housing schemes, malls, bridges and a knowledge-and-health city will come up.

Conscious of the road bumps ahead, the CM said, "We're committed to arranging for land for these projects to come up. Much of this will have to be converted from agriculture to industrial use. And yet, we know that we'll have to strike the right balance."

By a conservative estimate, the state government will have to hand over 45,000 acres of land to the Salim Group in order to accommodate all the components of this mega project that will take 15 years to complete.

Posted by john 2006-08-02 18:35|| 2006-08-02 18:35|| Front Page Top

#20 #14: "India is speeding up the building of the 3000 km border fence to keep out the Bangladeshis

Gee, I wish the US had thought of that!"

But a fence won't work, DV!

Just think of all the money the Indians are wasting. Too bad they didn't ask the Dems for advice....

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-02 19:23|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2006-08-02 19:23|| Front Page Top

#21 the Banglas do the jobs the Indians won't do...

/lying illegal rationalizer

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-08-02 20:27|| 2006-08-02 20:27|| Front Page Top

#22
"...the Banglas do the jobs the Indians won't do..."

Actually, that is the case. There are things that middle class Indians will not do, and they hire the uneducated people that flock to the metropolitan areas from the villages, to do these things.

Sorry for the tortured syntax on that last sentence, I was trying to avoid using the term "village people"! Oops.

They can be Banglas, Bongs (Bengalis) etc. Keep in mind, 80% of India's 1+ billion people are uneducated and not really interested in changing that.

-M

Posted by Manolo 2006-08-02 20:47|| 2006-08-02 20:47|| Front Page Top

#23 #23: "There are things that middle class Indians will not do"

It's probably more the case of there are things they don't have to do - because they're middle class.

There are a great many things that I could do, but hire out instead - now that I can afford to do so. Changing the oil in the car is one of them; I don't care about machinery and don't like getting my hands greasy. I'm happy to give my hard-earned money to those who do.

Technically, I'd do anything I'm physically able to do in order to support myself if I had to. I have education and experience and a great work ethic, and (at least at present) I don't have to do any of a great many things I don't like in order to support myself.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-02 21:00|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2006-08-02 21:00|| Front Page Top

#24
"It's probably more the case of there are things they don't have to do - because they're middle class."

Uh huh. So, you've lived in a middle class Indian environment? You're married to a middle class Indian and have how many middle class Indian family members? You live in India how many months out of the year?

Indians being far more class aware than we are, there are things a middle class Indian will not do.

-M

Posted by Manolo 2006-08-02 21:38|| 2006-08-02 21:38|| Front Page Top

#25 I'm aware that Indians are different from Americans, #25 Manolo, and may well not be willing to do some things to support themselves and their families. There are unfortunately too many native-born Americans with that same attitude.

However, Indian or American, if they're middle class, they don't have to do those things.

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-02 21:42|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com] 2006-08-02 21:42|| Front Page Top

#26 I've not lived the middle class Indian life, but I have patronized 7-11's, gas stations, and motels....does that count?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-08-02 22:24|| 2006-08-02 22:24|| Front Page Top

00:11 CrazyFool
23:59 JosephMendiola
23:59 mcsegeek1
23:54 Swamp Blondie
23:54 CrazyFool
23:46 Spavigum Glinens9851
23:38 DanNY
23:38 JosephMendiola
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:20 JosephMendiola
23:18 trailing wife
23:17 trailing wife
23:12 Thoth
23:04 AlterEgo
22:58 3dc
22:57 Frank G
22:56 3dc
22:54 Fantod
22:54 Alaska Paul
22:42 Thregum Sperese9498
22:41 Captain America
22:35 49 Pan
22:34 Frank G
22:34 3dc