Business leaders' pleading for ensuring stable and predictable regulatory and tax policy regimes for the country's socio-economic facelift reflects their frustration with the current state of affairs as far as gearing up the growth momentum of the economy is concerned. It will be foolhardy to ignore this, given the challenges that the economy faces at this stage. The business leaders and executives have been quite emphatic and unequivocal while expressing their views last Sunday at 'CanCham Bangladesh's 3rd Joint Chambers Meet-Up' in the capital. There are understandable reasons for that. Policy flip-flops on tax policy, infrastructural constraints, growing demand-supply mismatch in areas of human resources, messy state of affairs in energy sector, lack of effective land-use planning and, above all, absence of proper coordination among multiple and multi-layered bodies/authorities at policy-making and -implementation levels, are the problems that are known for long. These are acting as deterrents to enabling the economy to move on to a higher growth trajectory. Promises have been made, time and again, about fixing such problems through a comprehensive development and investment-supporting strategy. But visible actions so far have been few and far between. That has only compounded the problems, causing wider discomfort among both existing and potential investors.
There is no scope for the government to dither on tackling the problems that have, once again, been highlighted by the business community at the Cancham meeting. Foot-dragging on such counts will mean opportunities lost, entailing costs that will be mounting in the days ahead and, thus, be too heavy for the economy to bear. Time is fast running out for reaping the best dividends out of the available advantages and opportunities to facilitate a better performance of the economy. The government has itself set the goals and objectives for the economy's graduation to a middle-income one. This graduation is largely predicated on boosting investment - eyeing also upon its quality - to 35 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) at the least. Without reducing the costs of doing business and improvement in ease of doing business, it will be well-nigh impossible to achieve this target. Here, both economic and non-economic factors are critical for consideration. Hence, the focus of policy actions - bold and hard ones, of course - has to be unfailingly placed on ensuring a predictable and stable business environment. Both fiscal and monetary policies must, first of all, have to work in concert to give a positive signal that the government really means business about making things better.
Tax regime, fiscal and monetary policies, relevant regulatory frameworks, supply capacity about infrastructural facilities, skill level of human resources and many other factors, embracing both economic and non-economic ones, do have a bearing on easing doing business and, thus, minimising costs of doing business. The prime concern of the businesses, as has been highlighted in the CanCham meeting, has thus rightly been centred on all such issues. This merits priority attention. This is more so now when several downside risks - falling remittance earnings, and decelerating export growth, inflationary pressures, etc., - are all too evident, pointing to an unsavoury situation about the state of the country's economy.
