Apropos of the letter “BD, Indian economies” (April 10), the writer has made some sensible observations. Suffice it to say that Pakistan and its intelligentsia should critically examine the successes achieved by Bangladesh in the economic and population control realms, since that land is similar to Pakistan in many respects including the fact that it was our eastern wing for nearly a quarter of a century.

I am not saying that we should blindly copy or pursue the Bangladesh ‘developmental model’ but rather that we can learn a great deal from that country.

Several of the important factors contributing to Bangladesh’s success are: absence of terrorism or insurgency, a predominantly united nation, consistency of policies for industrialists and investors alike, availability of a flexible, educated, skilled, low-priced workforce, a low defence budget, better in-built accountability measures, and so forth.

Now is the time to take landmark policy decisions so that Pakistan’s direction can be re-positioned on an upward trajectory.

Abbas R. Siddiqi

Lahore

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2019