1.4 million people lost jobs due to lack of industrialisation: A. K. Azad

A. K. Azad, Managing Director of Ha-Meem Group and former FBCCI President, warned that 1.4 million people in Bangladesh have lost their jobs due to the severe slowdown in industrialisation, leaving many without work and roaming the streets.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the “Bangladesh Economic Summit 2025” organised by Bonik Barta at Hotel Sonargaon in Dhaka on Saturday morning, he highlighted the country’s worsening employment crisis. 

Every year, around three million new entrants join the labour force. Of these, only 120,000 find jobs in government and semi-government organisations, 800,000 migrate abroad for work, and roughly one million are absorbed by the private sector. The rest remain unemployed. 

With new industrial jobs drying up, unemployment is rising rapidly.

Azad cited the latest Bangladesh Bank bulletin (November 23) showing that GDP growth has slipped from 4.22 percent last year to an estimated 3.97 percent this year. 

He noted that officially reported classified loans stand at 24 percent, but the real figure is significantly higher due to widespread window-dressing by banks to protect dividends and profitability. 

“If we take a realistic average of 35 percent, we must ask where that money has gone and who took it,” he said, urging future governments to investigate and hold the culprits accountable under the law.

He strongly criticised the central bank’s tight contractionary monetary policy, which has driven up interest rates and choked private-sector credit growth to a mere six percent. 

“Industrialisation is in a terrible state,” he said. “We have shifted toward trading rather than manufacturing.” 

Import of capital machinery, a key indicator of new industrial investment, fell sharply last year and has dropped another 26 percent this year.

Azad also pointed out that the government is unable to cover its expenditures from revenue and is borrowing heavily from the banking system (27 percent of total bank loans) just to pay salaries of public servants.

On the energy front, he described the ongoing crisis as the country’s biggest challenge. Bangladesh has proven gas reserves of 7.8 trillion cubic feet against annual demand of around 3,800 million cubic feet per day. Currently 30 percent is met through imports while 70 percent comes from domestic reserves, depleting stocks by about 9 percent each year. At this rate, domestic gas will run out in six–seven years, forcing complete reliance on expensive imports and further discouraging investors.

The session was chaired by Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur and moderated by Dewan Hanif Mahmud, Editor and Publisher of Bonik Barta. 

Other speakers included BSMA President and GPH Group Chairman Mohammad Jahangir Alam, BIDS Director General Professor Dr. AK Enamul Haque, and Association of Bankers Bangladesh Chairman and City Bank MD Masrur Arefin.