The chicken and egg theory

Mahmudur Rahman writes for DOT : 
More often than not the government gets hammered for not being able to provide enough jobs to meet the rapid turnout of able handed and educated (sic) workforce every year. The figures are arguable but unemployment is significant enough to be of concern for social scientists as idle m)nds never come up with anything good. But the basic issue gets sidetracked no matter which sector is discussed.
The long term vision for government is to be a facilitating regulator rather than an implementing regulator. New government industries haven’t been seen for some while and its either with infrastructure projects or supporting private sector that jobs are created albeit not enough to match availability. In between we have the dim reality of not having enough skilled persons to fuel the growth of garment industries and other private organisations resulting in an influx of foreign nationals manning those posts. It isn’t flattering that India’s highest foreign remittance source is Bangladesh.
President Barrack Obama pumped billions as stimulus into General Motors following the economic pandemic of 2008. Now the same company has earned a sharp rebuke from President Donald Trump for having declared they would be trimming their workforce by 4000 jobs. The rebuke came with a threat to end subsidies which were not named. It fits with Mr. Trump’s theory of bringing jobs back to America but infringes on one of the basic rights of businesses to hire and fire. Having said that he didn’t react to job cuts in Google and Yahoo with similar vengeance. Compare that with the Adamjee
Jute Mills conundrum. The BNP government brokered a deal where with World Bank’s help workers were given a generous golden handshake because everyone including the bank agreed it was more expensive to have the mill running than shut it down. Such grants aren’t arrived at with a sniff, they are researched. But as Awami League led government showed somewhere the homework was wrong and reinstated the workforce. There was no probe. No one in government or the bank were ever asked how had the math gone wrong. The answer is similar to the Barapukuria coal scam where tonnes of the stuff mysteriously evaporated. The diligence and administration was badly flawed.
Governments are never good at doing business as is evident with the mess named Bangladesh Biman and Teletalk. The latter owes billions but is still asking for investments to expand business and modernise.
Mr. Trump is now targeting car manufacturers from the EU threatening huge tariff hikes forcing top executives to jet to Washington for remedial talks that may well include another factory being built by Daimler in the US. But at some stage Mr. Trump will have to face the reality of cutting his nose to spite himself given that some of these car manufacturers’ exports are sourced from America.
Bangladesh was never a huge market for new cars-the dubious reconditioned ones keeping persons happily convinced by very shrewd car importers. And though Pragati still manufactures cars, there’s a massive,massive opportunity for manufacturing under license as Mitshubishi were once on the verge of doing.
Government run industries are needed in a developing country but the rules of engagement has to change. Marketing sales and after-sales services are crucial pillars that must be modernised and thereby create more jobs. At times national industries will have to run at a loss as India demonstrated during the days its markets were closed. Their patience has resulted in car and electronic and electrical devises being manufactured on situ with no major complaints from the buying consumer.
Trade wars are dangerous both in terms of opportunity and risk. Bangladesh isn’t well placed to reap benefits from the trade war currently hitting the world. It’s more than time for policy planners to prepare an industrial roadmap aimed at reducing imports and encouraging exports.
The writer is an author, columnist, communications specialist.