In just a short 48 years, Bangladesh today boasts some impressive statistics

Famously derided as a “bottomless basket” by Nixon’s secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Bangladesh was not in a very good economic state right after independence and was heavily dependent on aid. But 48 years on, Bangladesh has consistently outperformed her South Asian neighbours and is now on her way to becoming a middle income country by 2021.

The World Bank (WB) in September this year projected a 7.2% GDP growth for Bangladesh for the current FY 2019-20 and 7.3 % for the next fiscal.

The WB report also forecast that Bangladesh’s economy would grow at a faster pace than India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Maldives and Afghanistan.

This was not how the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) thought the future was going to look like in 1971.

They said: “Nearly all problems of the unhappy Asian subcontinent are found, in microcosm, in what will presumably be the new Bengal nation, or Bangla Desh. They include overpopulation, economic backwardness, and racial and religious based hatreds, to name a few.”

In just a short 48 years, Bangladesh today boasts some impressive statistics. Our GDP is $317.46 billion, according to the World Bank data released in October.