ভাইয়েরা ফেইসবুকে এখজ এই মেসেজটা পাঠাইছে! অর্থনিতি নিয়া যাদের ঞ্জান আছে তাদের মন্রব্য চাচ্ছি Why the GOB should not devalue taka. Dear All, May I request you to read the following; if you are a policy makers please act on it or forward it to someone who could perhaps reach a policy maker. Why the GOB should not devalue taka. I noticed that the GOB is planning to devalue taka against the dollar. This news of devaluation prompted me to write this article. I think the devaluation would be the greatest mistake of Bangladesh. Why? The reasons are many. I am going to cite only 5 reasons. 1. Import costs will rise, especially of essential commodities like rice, dal and gasoline. ( The effect will be crippling. I can show the maths). 2. Cost of doing business will rise because we have no capital machinery manufacturing in Bangladesh and, therefore, if the taka is devalued then cost of obtaining machinery will rise significantly. The value-add for the garments sector is between 16 to 20%. That means for every dollar, approximately 0.80 cents of fabric and other items are imported. So, this cost will rise and then the real potential of export will drop due to added costs. This will subsequently devastate the economy. 3. Business development costs will rise. It will become prohibitively expensive for local businesses to travel overseas and strike business deals. Similarly, local businesses and even the GOB costs of managing overseas engagement will rise significantly. 4. The costs of input into different manufacturing will rise because most ingredients are imported. 5. The cost of educating our students at all levels will rise and more money will be needed to support their education overseas and even within the country studying under the british education system. 6. Branding Bangladesh cannot happen with a weak dollar that has fallen in value since 1971. We have always taken the short cut to devalue our taka to improve exports without really working to diversify exports. Time has come to re-brand Bangladesh with a strong taka. A strong taka will help Bangladeshi citizens to make strategic global investments, allowing Bangladesh to open its international doors to revenues (like the Indian counterpart), provided the government makes a paradigm shift through inducing conducive laws with respect to such potential engagement opportunities. Lastly, I believe we need to find alternatives to devaluing our currency. I think devaluing the currency may be a short term answer but it will eventually turn out to be a gross macro-economic error. The goal of keeping the dollar stable is not really helping the masses of the people but rather 2 to 3 million people. This is a public policy issue and do we work for the 3 million people or have plans for the 140 million people? This is a question the government must ask themselves. The idea of devaluation is nothing but signaling a quick death of the franchise called 'bangladesh.' This needs to stop immediately. Please forward the message amongst others and raise your voice.