Authors : ASM Rejaul and Hassan Karim Bakshi
Abstract: Bangladesh is a young developing country having agriculture as the pre dominant sector in employment generation. The trade scenario of the country also reveals its huge dependence on the exports of primary products while on the contrary the bulk of finished goods imports. This inevitably leads to the adverse balance of payment pressure and the terms of trade thereby. The need for rapid industrialization in Bangladesh is well recognized from this background of the country’s unemployment pressure and technological backwardness. Establishing Export Processing Zones is thought to speed up the industrialization process and technological transfer attracting both local and foreign investment. It also aims to ease the balance of payment pressure of the country producing a net foreign exchange inflow from the value added of the EPZs. Bangladesh has passed almost twenty years of its EPZs experience and it is high time to study the overall impact of the EPZs thereby for efficient use of the country’s limited resources. This study in this context presents the nature of investment and employment in the EPZs, the incentive packages it offers, its prospects by studying different indicators relating to EPZs performances in creating employment, reducing technology gap, improving balance of payment and improving backward and forward linkage industries of the country. Finally policy suggestions are made in light of the findings of the study.
ASM Rejaul and Hassan Karim Bakshi , 2005. Export Processing Zones in Bangladesh: Sustainable Progress or Incentive Packages. Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 3: 940-947.