#Title

Bangladesh moves to put
FROM PAGE B1
Fund can be involved in this process. If the IMF sends a statistical mission, it can help the government manage data better.”
Rahman said after the recent export data shock, data governance has become a major issue for Bangladesh since it has raised questions about many other numbers such as gross and net foreign exchange reserves.
“So, there is no alternative to giving importance to the data management, data governance and synchronisation.”
“The initiative will really be a good move,” said Selim Raihan, executive director of the South Asian Network on Economic Modeling.
He described the difference between the figures released by the EPB and the BB as one of the largest data scams.
The EPB official also said the gap between the real export sum and the provisional export data was as high as $4 billion annually in the past. But this time, the gap climbed to $14 billion because of multiple counting of the goods shipped.
The customs department of the NBR also counted the value of the samples exporters send to prospective buyers free of cost under the existing export policy.
Moreover, last year nearly $1.7 billion worth of local imports by the factories inside the export processing zones were taken into account by the EPB while computing Bangladesh’s sales in the global markets. However, the central bank does not include the amount in the final export data.
Currently, the EPB processes the export data after receiving it from the customs department. The customs department sends the data based on the shipping bills of merchandise, the official of the EPB said.
However, a lot of changes may take place after products leave the country. For example, sometimes goods are not exported at all, but the data is still considered by the customs department and is sent to the EPB.
Both Raihan and Sayema Haque Bidisha, a professor of economics at the University of Dhaka, said the government should first identify the reasons behind the data discrepancy.
“One way of checking trade data is to verify it from the importers’ end,” Bidisha said. “It is also important that data is regularly reported to the UN Comtrade.”
The United Nations Comtrade database aggregates detailed global annual and monthly trade statistics by product and trading partner for use by governments, academia, research institutes, and enterprises.
“Finally, it is important to know the source of mistakes,” said Prof Bidisha.
Various explanations can be there, she said.
“It can be over-invoicing by exporters. Was it misreporting on the part of the EPB? Or it may be that a part of export earnings was not brought to the country.”
Raihan questioned whether the data mismatch had been caused by the absence of technological skills or a deliberate reporting of inflated data.
“If the reporting was deliberate, the planned platform will not work at all,” he said, calling it one of the biggest data scams.
Raihan said the issue can’t be taken lightly.
“For the new platform to work effectively, the government must take initiatives to develop the skills of officials who will operate it.”

Climate change
FROM PAGE B1
The third action should be improving sustainability of genetic diversity in brood stocks as a resource for long-term and continuous adaptation to climate change.
And finally, the third initiative should be finding potential and developing the capacity of aquaculture in mitigating the impact of and/or sequestrating the release of greenhouse gas emissions.
He also pointed out a way forward, seeking to define adaptation strategies for the main environmental, disease and genetic threats caused by climate change in order to inform and guide aquaculture community.
Virapat also underlined the need for improved water storage capacity and effective water utilisation for agriculture, industry and households and reduced fishing pressure along coastal areas.