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BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology

(BUFT)

Course Code: BUS 3101

Course Title: International Trade & Transaction

Date of Assignment
05th October 2021

Date of Submission
15th November 2021

Assignment On
The impact of COVID-19 globalization: A study on opportunities and challenges
in Bangladesh
Submitted By:
Name: Tanvirul Khandakar
I’d Number: 192-082-111
Section: 192-02
Department of Apparel Merchandising & Management (AMM)
BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT)

Submitted To:
Ms. Anindita Shaha Tumpa
Lecturer
Department of Business Administration
BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT)

Table of Content
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Serial Number Content Name Page Number

01 Introduction, Objectives
02 Letter of Transmittal
03 The Impact of COVID-19 on Bangladesh's Economy
04 Context
05 Challenges of Bangladesh in Globalization
06 Strategy
07 Country Partnership Framework
08 Result
09 Opportunities in Bangladesh, Conclusion

The impact of COVIT-19 globalization: A study on opportunities and

challenges in Bangladesh
Introduction:
Globalization, or globalization (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences),
is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and
governments worldwide. Globalization has accelerated since the 18th century due
to advances in transportation and communication technology. This increase in
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global interactions has caused a growth in international trade and the exchange of

ideas, beliefs, and culture. Globalization is primarily an economic process of
interaction and integration that is associated with social and cultural aspects.
However, disputes and diplomacy are also large parts of the history of
globalization, and of modern globalization.
Objectives:
The goal of globalization is to provide organizations a superior competitive
position with lower operating costs, to gain greater numbers of products, services,
and consumers.

Letter of Transmittal
th
05 October 2021

TO,
Anindita Shaha Tumpa
Lecturer
Department of Business Administration
BGMEA University of Fashion & Technology (BUFT)
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Subject: Assignment on the impact of covet-19 globalization: A study on

opportunities and challenges in Bangladesh

Dear Mam,

With due respect, I want to state that I am studying the attached assignment
entitled “The impact of covet-19 globalization: A study on opportunities and
challenges in Bangladesh” as a partial requirement of the Bachelor in AMM
degree.

I pray and hope that you will kindly accept the assignment. I hope that you will
find this assignment as satisfactory.

Program: Bachelor in Apparel Merchandising & Management (AMM)

I’d Number: 192-082-111
Section: 192-02
Department of Business Administration

The Impact of COVID-19 on Bangladesh's Economy:

The COVID-19 pandemic is having an adverse impact on Bangladesh's economy by
affecting millions of people's life and hampering their income sources. The outbreak of
COVID-19 has created more pressure on the labor market. The pandemic reduces
employment opportunities as most of the companies have stopped their recruitment
process to cut their operational costs, which increases the rate of graduate
unemployment in Bangladesh. Hence, this study aims to investigate the impact of
COVID-19 on graduate employability in Bangladesh that adversely affects the income
of families and eventually the nation's economy. A literature review has been
conducted from secondary sources to evaluate the impact, which shows that the rate of
graduate unemployment increased from 47% to 58% in 2020 with an expected annual
loss estimated at $53 million. Findings also reveal that the prime reasons for graduate
employability are low demand and huge supply of graduates in the labor market, lack
of professional skills of graduates, ineffective education system, etc. The study
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suggests that the government of Bangladesh should develop some policies to

overcome this problem such as ensuring employment subsidies, implementing skills
development programs, improving labor market flexibility, initiating credit programs
for generating employment, and developing entrepreneurial ecosystems in Bangladesh.

Context:
Bangladesh has an impressive track record of growth and poverty reduction. It has
been among the fastest growing economies in the world over the past decade,
supported by a demographic dividend, strong ready-made garment (RMG) exports,
and stable macroeconomic conditions. Continued recovery in exports and
consumption will help growth rates pick up to 6.4 percent in fiscal year 2021-22.
Bangladesh tells the world a remarkable story of poverty reduction and
development. From being one of the poorest nations at birth in 1971 with per
capita GDP tenth lowest in the world, Bangladesh reached lower-middle-income
status in 2015. It is on track to graduate from the UN’s Least Developed Countries
(LDC) list in 2026. Poverty declined from 43.5 percent in 1991 to 14.3 percent in
2016, based on the international poverty line of $1.90 a day (using 2011
Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate). Moreover, human development outcomes
improved along many dimensions.
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Challenges of Bangladesh in globalization:

Bangladesh, like other countries, faces the daunting challenge of fully recovering
from the COVID-19 pandemic which has constrained economic activities and
reversed some of the gains achieved in the last decade. The COVID-19 pandemic
decelerated economic growth in 2020. The pace of poverty reduction slowed down,
exports declined, inequality increased across several dimensions and the poverty
rate in 2020 increased to 18.1 percent from 14.4 percent. Nevertheless, strong
remittance inflows and a rebound in export market has helped the economy to start
recovering gradually. To recover fully and achieve its growth ambitions of
achieving upper-middle income status, Bangladesh needs to address the challenge
of containing COVID-19. Vaccinating the population will reduce the incidence of
the disease and mortality and enable the full resumption of economic activities.
Bangladesh also needs to address the challenge of creating jobs/employment
opportunities through a competitive business environment, increased human capital
and skilled labor force, efficient infrastructure, and a policy environment that
attracts private investments. Other development priorities include diversifying
exports beyond the RMG sector; deepening the financial sector; making
urbanization more sustainable and strengthening public institutions. Addressing
infrastructure gaps would accelerate growth and reduce spatial disparities in
opportunities across regions and within cities.
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Strategy:
Since the country’s independence, the World Bank has been a longstanding partner
of Bangladesh. Since then, the World Bank through its concessional lending arm
the International Development Association (IDA) has committed more than $35
billion in grants, interest-free and concessional financing credits to Bangladesh.
Currently, Bangladesh is among the largest IDA recipient country. The World
Bank has also been the largest external funder of Bangladesh providing over a
quarter of all foreign aid to the country. Through a robust program of technical,
analytical, and financial support, the World Bank Group is supporting Bangladesh
towards its vision of becoming an upper-middle income country by the next
decade. This includes government efforts in economic development and growth,
power, infrastructure, disaster management, climate change, human and social
development, and poverty reduction.
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Country Partnership Framework:

The World Bank Group’s Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for 2016-
2020  outlines the plan for  supporting the country to ensure green, resilient and
inclusive development . The three focus areas are: (1) growth and competitiveness;
(2) social inclusion; and (3) climate and environment management. It adjusted to
respond to the challenges created by the influx of the displaced Rohingya
population, and recommended greater attention to human capital, climate
resilience, and digital transformation. The World Bank Group’s technical and
financial assistance focuses on (i) accelerating growth by helping to remove
bottlenecks to growth and shift more financing to increase electricity supply and
improve transport connectivity; (ii) foster social inclusion by building on
Bangladesh’s impressive gains in human and social development; and (iii)
strengthen climate and environmental management with the aim to enhance
Bangladesh’s resilience to natural disasters, improving water and natural resource
management and modernizing agriculture. The framework is anchored in the
government’s Seventh Five-Year Plan. Through extensive consultations with its
stakeholders government, civil society, and the private sector the World Bank
Group is embarking upon the preparation of the next Country Partnership
Framework for Bangladesh for 2023-2027, which will support the Government of
Bangladesh’s Eighth Five-Year Plan. The World Bank support for Bangladesh for
FY21–22 is aligned with the World Bank Group’s Approach Paper on “Green
Resilient and Inclusive Development (GRID).” Total IDA commitments as in the
active portfolio stands at 13.96 billion for 52 ongoing projects.

Result
Support to fight COVIT-19:
Within three weeks of detection of the first COVID-19 case in Bangladesh, the
World Bank approved $100 million to help Bangladesh test, treat, manage the
COVID-19 infection, as well as strengthen the public health system. The financing
helped Bangladesh ramp up COVID-19 testing and strengthen treatment through
ensuring supplies of critical items like ventilators, oxygen concentrators, ICU beds,
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high flow oxygen cannula, and personal protective equipment as well as work for
setting up liquid medical oxygen systems at 30 public facilities is ongoing. In
March 2021, the World Bank approved additional $500 million to support the
national vaccination program. Further, since the pandemic started, the World Bank
approved $1.7 billion to support Bangladesh with the aim of “building back
better,” including an agenda for reforms and effective investments which will
leverage the private sector, help job recovery, create job, boost human capital
development, and strengthen protections for the vulnerable people.
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Education:
IDA is the largest external funder in the education sector covering the primary,
secondary, and tertiary levels, as well as technical and vocational education and
training, and education for the hard-to-reach children. Bangladesh has made
remarkable gains in ensuring access to education in the past two decades. In 2018,
the country’s net enrollment rate at the primary school level reached above 97
percent, and that at secondary school level, around 69 percent.  With nearly 9.1
million girls in secondary schools in 2019, Bangladesh is among the few
developing countries to achieve gender parity in school enrollment and has more
girls than boys in secondary schools. Improving the quality of education remains
the largest challenge for Bangladesh at all levels. Yet due to drop out rates, around
18 percent of children ages 6-11 remain out of school – either having never
enrolled or dropped out before completing grade 5. The Reaching-Out-of-School
(ROSC II) Project helps address bringing the poor and out-of-school children to
schools and enable them to complete Grade 5 and transition to secondary
education. The Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP) helped to
strengthen and improve the quality of skills training and employability of youth,
both at home and abroad. Around, 150,000 graduates have completed programs in
100 polytechnic institutions. The World Bank is supporting the government
respond to the COVID-19 impact and build back a better and resilient education
system through new and existing operations. These operations support remote
learning, safe school reopening, student learning assessment and remedial
education, enhancing digital connectivity and capacity building for better-prepared
school teachers and management at local and central levels.

Health, Nutrition and Population:

The World Bank has been a longstanding partner in helping the country’s health
sector. The statistics speaks for itself: assisted deliveries by skilled birth
attendance, increased from 5% in 1991 to 32% in 2011. This has helped reduce
maternal mortality rates from 574/100000 live births in 1990 to 194/100000 Live
births in 2010: and the under-five mortality rate from 151/1000 live births in 1990
to 53/1000 live births in 2011. Today, nearly 80% of Bangladeshi children receive
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vitamin A supplements and over 85% are fully vaccinated, setting Bangladesh on
the pathway to achieving some targets of Sustainable Development Goal 3 -
reducing maternal and under-5 mortality. In fact, a Bangladeshi born today is more
likely to live a quarter of a century more than a child born in 1972. Despites of
enviable progress made, there remains a significant unfinished agenda with regards
to essential maternal, child health and nutritional services.  At the same time, as
Bangladesh transitions to a middle-income economy, the country needs to address
rapid increase in Non-Communicable Diseases, and, be prepared for emerging
infectious diseases such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For tackling these
challenges, the country’s health system needs to be strengthened for both quality
and equity of health services, through increase in public spending on health,
improvement in governance and stewardship, as well as enhancement in human
resource for health.  The World Bank is aligning financial and technical support to
Bangladesh in order to meet these challenges. The Bank supports the government’s
fourth Health Nutrition Population sector program.

Energy
The access to electricity in Bangladesh reached to 99.5% (grid and off-grid) and
the current installed generation capacity has increased to 25,235 MW including
captive power and renewables.  IDA support has so far added 2,652 MW electricity
to the national grid, and 118 MW in off-grid areas through installation of solar
home systems, solar irrigation pumps, solar mini-grids and installed more than 2.3
million improved cookstoves. Another 310 MW capacity will be added to the
national grid through ongoing grid-tied solar projects. The World Bank supports
promoting power sector policies and institutional capacity building within the
Government, power and gas utilities and Bangladesh Energy Regulatory
Commission (BERC) with the aim to improve the financial health, investment, and
service quality. The World Bank has $1.85 billion of ongoing support in the energy
sector to enhance capacity, generate clean energy, improve efficiency in generation
and transmission & system operation, reduce technical losses, improve
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transmission and rural distribution network as well as increase access to both grid
and renewable electricity.
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Agriculture
Despite high population density, decreasing arable land, and frequent natural
disasters, Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in achieving food security and
reducing poverty. Agricultural production value has increased faster than most of
the country's regional peers at 3.54% per year in the two recent decades (1999-
2019). However, self-sufficiency is continuously threatened by a decrease of arable
land by 0.4% per year, an increasing population, and declining output growth with
the share of agriculture in total GDP decreasing from 22.7% in 1999 to just
13.35% in 2019/20 (provisional). This has contributed to a decline in employment
growth and to a slowdown in poverty reduction. In the agriculture sector, the
World Bank supports the government towards climate resilient diversification,
value addition for greater job creation, entrepreneurship, safer, and more efficient
food systems. The World Bank is helping over 1.8 million rural households
modernize farm practices and use new climate smart technologies and 2 million
household farmers, small and medium-scale agro-entrepreneurs to improve
livestock production sustainably, with higher productivity and better market
access. Simultaneously, the World Bank supported 500,000 households to increase
grain reserves to meet their post-disaster needs and is helping the country improve
the quality and efficiency of grain storage management. The World Bank is
helping Bangladesh address food insecurity in challenging times, by increasing the
storage capacity of Bangladesh’s national strategic grain reserves by 535,500 tons
for 4.5 million households and helping business continuity for 620,000 among the
most vulnerable households in the livestock sector during the COVID crisis.

Climate Change
Bangladesh’s geographical position renders it especially vulnerable to the adverse
impacts of climate change. The Global Climate Risk Index ranks Bangladesh as the
world’s seventh most affected country over the period 2000-2019 (Germanwatch
2021). The World Bank continues to help Bangladesh address climate change
impacts and disaster risk management. The country has built stronger disaster-
coping mechanisms which helped to reduce cyclone related deaths by 100-fold
since 1970. IDA has an ongoing portfolio of US$1.3 billion supporting Bangladesh
to build resilience against natural disasters and climate change impacts. Key
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interventions so far include - 1,313 repaired or newly constructed multi-purpose

disaster shelters, 375 km of climate-resilient roads built for last-mile connectivity,
rehabilitation of 745 km of embankments, restoration or construction of 471
hydraulic structures for sustainable water management, and 473 ha in 10 coastal
polders afforested with 1,182,500 seedlings, following a social afforestation
approach. All of these are benefiting 5.69 million in climate-vulnerable coastal
Bangladesh.
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Opportunities in Bangladesh:
In Bangladesh, the easiest way for international students to pursue a research
career is to continue academic research in the host university. In this regard, you
might find the below links to the research opportunities of Bangladesh's two top-
ranked universities. As the oldest educational and research center in Bangladesh,
Dhaka University can be one of the first sights to focus your attention on for
research purposes. Each of the 13 faculties of the UniUniversityve their
own research centers & bureaus. The most active research directions in the
UniUniversityclude Arts, Business Studies, Social Sciences, and Biological
Sciences.  Another good opportunity to carry out research in the top-ranked
University in Bangladesh is to cooperate with the Bangladesh University of
Engineering and Technology. BUET offers UniUniversity's-faculty research
programs and cooperates with international organizations such as United Nations
Organizations, University Grants Commission, Commonwealth Foundation, etc.

Conclusion:
According to the foregoing analysis, globalization is not merely an intensification
of global interconnectedness brought about by market forces and technological
change. The financial crises affecting different countries have shaken the
confidence of the advocates of globalization.