Bangladesh, Nov. 10 -- After liberation in 1971, Bangladesh adopted an industrial policy pursuing an import-substituting industrialisation. Its key objectives were to safeguard the country's infant industries, reduce balance of payments deficit, use scarce foreign exchanges efficiently, ward off shocks coming from international capital market and exchange rate fluctuations, lessen fiscal imbalance, and to achieve higher economic growth and self-sufficiency.
However, this policy could not deliver desired outcomes. Increasing internal and external imbalances led to trade policy reforms in the early 1980s. It was time when Bangladesh's number one exportable product jute and jute goods was losing market. The country then successfully expanded ...