The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) recently organised an international investment conference, which more than 400 investors attended. The BIDA chair, Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun (more popularly known as Ashik Chowdhury), in his eloquent presentation, claimed that Bangladesh would turn into a regional manufacturing hub and thus become a country like Singapore or Thailand by 2035. His English language proficiency and oratory skills eventually became the talk of the town. All the government advisers who attended the BIDA chair's address seemed to be mesmerised, deeply gratified, and immensely proud as they enjoyed the 12-minute presentation. The media kept pouring praise on the interim government, which has done an exemplary job by picking a brilliant non-resident Bangladeshi to lead BIDA.

The Sheikh Hasina regime often picked retired bureaucrats to head most financial institutions so they could guarantee unconditional obedience and little merit. We are proud, too, of the new BIDA chair's performance, because no BIDA chief could speak so eloquently about attracting investments in the past. But marketing excellence is not enough to pull in foreign investors, who mainly judge the ground reality of the country—something not always palatable given the recent rise in mob violence, vandalism, and animosity towards foreign companies. The New York Times added salt to the wound by painting Bangladesh as a home of growing extremism. The law-and-order situation is also under question. Mr Chowdhury didn't do enough justice to economics in his stunning presentation, making the outcomes of the hugely publicised summit quite uncertain.

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Let’s sustain the momentum of the summit

BIDA's claim that Bangladesh will become like Singapore or Thailand in a decade is reminiscent of Hasina's claim that Bangladesh will become a developed nation by 2041. We are not sure which quack economist gave this idea to the former prime minister. But the politicians in power echoed the tune without understanding its feasibility. It requires double-digit growth for 25 years in a row. Economists who raised this point were seen as "anti-development" agents. Mr Chowdhury's dream is even more euphoric at an uncomfortable time when the interim government is heading towards an election, and political stability, the precondition for FDI growth in a developing nation, is lacking.

When Mr Chowdhury mentioned two countries to model our targets on, it didn't make much sense either, because Singapore is far more advanced than Thailand. According to the World Bank (WB) data, Thailand's per capita income was $7,182 in 2023, while Singapore's was $84,734, almost 12 times higher. WB data also shows that in 2023, Bangladesh's growth was 5.8 percent, Thailand's 1.9 percent, and Singapore's 1.1 percent. Based on GDP and growth rates, the "catching-up calculations" show that it will take Bangladesh another 27 years to catch up with Thailand, while catching up with Singapore will take as long as 77 years.

What kind of background maths Mr Chowdhury did before manufacturing the dream of Bangladesh becoming a country like Singapore in just 10 years remains a big question. Given the dataset, Bangladesh requires at least a 13 percent growth rate for 10 years in a row to reach Thailand's per capita GDP. However, to reach the Singaporean level, Bangladesh must grow annually at 43.5 percent for 10 years in a row—which has never been seen in the history of mankind.

BIDA's claim that Bangladesh will become like Singapore or Thailand in a decade is reminiscent of Hasina's claim that Bangladesh will become a developed nation by 2041. We are not sure which quack economist gave this idea to the former prime minister. But the politicians in power echoed the tune without understanding its feasibility. It requires double-digit growth for 25 years in a row. Economists who raised this point were seen as "anti-development" agents.

Imagination can supersede fantasy at times, but that is not how an economist should speak. Policymakers must speak more responsibly by engaging rigour and professionalism in forecasting. Of course, people have some appetite for dreams and fantasy. But whether a story of imagination teeming with fantasy will really bring investment to this land is an area for both doubt and research. Bangladesh earned FDI of $824 million in the first eight months of FY2025, marking a 20 percent drop in foreign investment compared to the previous period.

The net FDI inflows as a share of GDP have always remained very low in Bangladesh despite hyper-marketing in the past. In 2000, FDI inflows reached 0.53 percent of GDP for the first time. It exceeded one percent in 2005 and peaked at 1.7 percent in 2013, marking the start of a downturn since then. From a fishermen's society, Singapore turned into a paragon of development primarily by enhancing its institutions, which are highly substandard in Bangladesh, mainly because of political corruption across all regimes. And that is the main reason why Bangladesh can't become Singapore overnight.

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Homecoming with a purpose

Foreign investors are prudent and cautious. Historically, Bangladesh experienced higher volumes of FDI whenever an elected government took office since 1991, suggesting that political stability is the mantra for drawing foreign investments. Simple rhetoric and marketing gimmicks may impress the audience temporarily, but investors will investigate economic rationales, which were starkly missing in Mr Chowdhury's presentation. The prognosis of making Bangladesh a regional manufacturing hub seems odd at a time when the country's relationship with its neighbours remains strained.

Chowdhury even went so far as to claim that all imagination and vision for a "Singapore-bound Bangladesh" began just eight months ago, defying all the achievements of past regimes. The country embarked on a new path of growth and development in the early 1990s with the inception of the market economy and economic openness. Bangladesh achieved average growth rates of 3.54 percent in the 1980s, 4.71 percent in the 1990s, 5.6 percent in the 2000s, and 6.6 percent in the 2010s. This story of growth acceleration could have been the strongest point for investment advocacy, which Chowdhury's smart presentation either missed or ignored. Highlighting the growth dynamics since the early 1990s would have added more strength and justification for investing in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh need not be like Singapore right now. Rather, it needs to understand how a country like Vietnam has been accelerating its pace of development—by ensuring law and order, improving infrastructure, expanding social safety nets, nurturing better relationships with regional partners, and building stronger institutions that value knowledge and expertise.

Dr Birupaksha Paul is professor of economics at the State University of New York in Cortland, US. His recent book is Bangladesher Orthonitir Songskar (Reforms for Bangladesh's Economy).

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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