02 March 2004	Tuesday	10 Muharram 1425

DHAKA, March 1: Drawbacks in economic integration and technological connectivity have brought down Bangladesh's rank in a list of countries with linkages to the global economy.

Bangladesh has slipped two positions from a year ago to be ranked 56th in the globalization index 2004, jointly prepared by management consultants AT Kearney and the international journal Foreign Policy, which was released on February 26. The country was ranked 54 in the previous index released in 2003, and 48 in 2002.

Bangladesh, however, is ahead of India that ranked 61 - the last but one. The last country in the index is Iran that ranks 62. Pakistan ranked 46 and Sri Lanka 51.

The index is a ranking of "economic and political integration" in 62 countries representing 85 per cent of the world's population and more than 95 per cent of the world's economic output. The index is based on data from 2002.

For the third year in a row, Ireland has been ranked the most global nation followed by Singapore, Switzerland and the Netherlands in the index, which has 14 variables grouped in four baskets: economic integration, personal contact, technological connectivity, and political engagement.

In fact, there are some factors that could have actually made Bangladesh seem more global than it actually is. The tremendous performance in remittance inflow helped Bangladesh to be ranked 43rd in the personal contact sub-index, although performances in the other two factors - telephone and travel - were very low. But the counterweight of factors such as the huge decline in FDI inflow and further undermining of investor confidence attributed to the downgrading overall.

The performance of Bangladesh in the economic and technological areas appeared worst amongst the 62 countries and placed the country at the bottom of these sub-indices.

Bangladesh's performance on trade, portfolio investment, foreign direct investment and investment income - the factors comprising economic ranking - became visibly very low.

These, however, do not necessarily point to the country's poor performance alone as the survey found that globalization survived considerable challenges in 2002. Throughout the world, economic integration dropped to the lowest levels since 1998, reflecting slow economic growth in many regions.

However, drivers of global integration - from travel to telephone traffic - maintained their forward momentum, making the world more integrated at the end of 2002 than ever before.

Bangladesh is still behind all others in internet usage, internet hosting and the number of secure internet servers - all three combining for the ranking on technological connectivity.

The performance in the political engagement sub-index was better, drawing a ranking of 35. Bangladesh's involvement with international organizations, UN peacekeeping and treaties appeared satisfactory in the index.