Dhaka: Bangladesh, the most populous among the 50 least developed countries (LDCs), is urbanising at a fast pace without creating more non-farm jobs, causing prospects of international migration, says a UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) report.
If this employment challenge is not effectively dealt with, there will be increased pressure on international migration to industrialised countries, according to the just published report.
It noted that without sustained effort to build the productive base of the poorest countries, it is also likely that there will be "increasingly frequent humanitarian emergencies as well as associated civil conflicts" among LDCs.
"They must find a way to foster viable businesses and expand non-agricultural employment when world markets are more competitive than ever and their own markets are wide open," the report added.
Bangladesh is "contributing strongly to this trend", The Daily Star newspaper reported.
While "manpower export" to industrialised nations is one of the major economic activities and a foreign exchange earner of Bangladesh, there is also large-scale illegal migration to India that is perceived as changing demographic contours in the region along the 4,300-km India-Bangladesh border.
New Delhi has been unable to effectively deport the migrants, and Dhaka consistently denies that it takes place at all.
With $460 million received during 2004, Bangladesh lined up behind some of the most war-torn and vulnerable countries to become the ninth largest foreign direct investment (FDI) recipient among LDCs.
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Though Bangladesh has shown significant progress in overcoming economic vulnerability, its performance in addressing low income and poor human resource was "mediocre", the UN report said.
Highlighting Bangladesh's performance in the report's findings, Debapriya Bhattacharya, executive director of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), who released the report, said: "Bangladesh has done better in 15 indicators including per capita GDP growth rate and merchandise exports and remained above the LDC average."
The other indicators in which the country performed well are debt-GDP ratio, average national labour productivity, birth, death, infant mortality and under-five mortality rates, life expectancy, population growth, school enrolment, road and aviation infrastructure, per capita energy consumption and manufacturing value added as a percentage of total value added.
The "Unctad's LDC Report 2006: Developing Productive Capacity" was launched simultaneously across the world and on the basis of the report, the CPD prepared an analysis on where Bangladesh stands among LDCs.
Bangladesh's GDP growth rate, gross capital formation and rail infrastructure are almost similar to the LDC average, Bhattacharya observed.
Diversifying exports, improving ICT and transportation infrastructure and investing in providing electricity to more people will also be some of the challenges for the country, he said.
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