Patterns and trends of development of manufacturing industries in Bangladesh a regional analysis

Abstract

Bangladesh is one of the most populous countries in the world, facing challenges in its every aspect. Like other developing countries, Bangladesh is also experiencing industrialization and the trend of industrialization is increasing gradually. The national and regional trends of manufacturing industrial development in Bangladesh for the two consecutive census years 1995- 96 and 2005-06 were studied in this research. It revealed that there is considerable spatial and temporal imbalance of industrial development in both divisional and regional (former districts) level. In 1995-96 census the range was between 0.37-32.46 percent and in 2005-06 census it was between 0.04 -45.03 percent. In 1995-96, nearly 55 percent and 16 percent of the total manufacturing industrial employment are concentrated in Dhaka and Chittagong regions. In 2005-06, it becomes 58 percent and 21 percent, respectively. The interregional variation in industrial development indicates unstable economic growth and lack of policy in regions of Bangladesh. Along with this, regional inequality in the distribution of industrial employment was analyzed using Location Quotient (L.Q.) of different types of industry and regions, Shift-Share Analysis and Moran’s I Spatial Correlation. The values of Moran’s I Spatial Correlation were found - 0.086 and -0.101 in the year 1995-96 and 2005-06 respectively. It indicates that the industrialization is not uniform throughout the country. The aspects which are closely associated with the level of industrialization such as- person engaged, gross output, per capita value added, gross value added and growth rate of employment were also studied here. This study was not only limited to the study of regional variation of industrial development. It explicitly analyzed some socio-economic and infrastructural factors affecting this variation with their relative and changing importance in this regard. For this purpose Bivariate Correlation Coefficients of the dependent variable, i.e. level of industrialization with independent variables were measured for two consecutive censuses. It was found that non-agricultural activities, level of urbanization, rural-urban migration, water supply coverage and electricity coverage are strongly positively correlated with the level of industrialization all along. Moreover, it was found that all the factors are not equally significant with the level of industrialization all the time. In this study secondary data were used and the main source of data was the various census and annual reports conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).