AMID public outcry over unprecedented power outages, the concern being voiced by industry owners about a declining productivity is evidently drowned out. But this is an issue that needs to be attended to if we are to avert any adverse impact on macro-economic management.
Gas and electricity scarcity has pushed many an industrial unit deep into a production crisis. If not already shuttered down, several of them are having to face a prospect for closure.
Our economy is export-led. And, just when the clouds of global recession overhanging export trade are lifting and the demand for our products overseas growing, we are handicapped through a gas and power crunch. Several industrial units are operating at 20-30 percent of their capacity. Of course, big and established industrial houses are depending on their own captive power or standby generators which, need we say, are cost-intensive.
In terms of FDI, generally speaking, we have not been faring too well and thence came the global recession to trigger a decline. To illustrate the point, there has been a 67 percent fall in the FDI flow during July to December compared to the same period last year.
By contrast, indicators of domestic investment show a positive trend. For instance, disbursement of industrial term loans increased by 41 percent in July-December period of the current fiscal. There was negative growth in the same period of 2008-09. Also, credit to private sector increased by 13.06 percent compared with 8.65 percent in the same period last fiscal. As for the other indicators of investment trend, such as import of capital machinery, number of LCs opened and the demand for call money, the sound bytes are positive.
With such favourable vibes of overseas demand for Bangladeshi products and an upbeat in terms of domestic investment, what the government needs to do is to adopt a crash programme for gas exploration and addition to electricity generation capacity through short-gestation power plants coupled with a shift away from critical dependence on gas for production of electricity.