According to surveying agencies, Bangladesh is one of the first 50 largest economies in the world. Though the economy of Bangladesh had been quite poor for the first two decades after its independence, it started improving during the last few years of the twentieth century. This was mainly because of the foreign aid and remittances of Bangladeshi workers employed in foreign countries to their relatives in the homeland. In recent years, the national atmosphere has been made attractive for foreign investments and there have been considerable foreign investments in areas like exploring oil and natural gas, supplying gas through pipelines, and power generation projects.

The major sectors that contribute to the national GDP of Bangladesh are: 1) Service industry, 2) Manufacturing industries and 3) Agriculture.

Service industry

The service industry in Bangladesh contributes to about 55% of the national GDP. The services include hospitality, banking, insurance, logistics, human resource, consulting and several such other services. As most of these services are basic requirements of a society they in return have become the major driving force of the economy of Bangladesh.

The service industry is expected to grow further due to the increase in population and increase in foreign investments in Bangladesh. However, economists observe that Bangladesh needs to improve its infrastructure, privatize its weak public enterprises, and generate more skilled labor to support the service industry.

Agriculture

Some believe that Bangladesh has agriculture-based economy because around 70% of Bangladesh’s human resources are employed in the Agriculture industry.
However, agriculture contributes only about 20% revenue to the national GDP. The positive aspect is that in the last few years, Bangladesh has become self sufficient with respect to its requirement of rice.

Rice is the main crop of Bangladesh mainly because it can be harvested three times a year and the atmosphere is suitable for it to grow. The other crop that is common in Bangladesh is jute. Apart from these two major crops wheat, maize and vegetables are the new crops introduced in the country’s agricultural industry.

There are few possibilities for trying diverse cultivations in Bangladesh because though the land is fertile the uncertainty about monsoons causes a serious threat to such crops. The reoccurrence of floods has been a challenge for the government to tackle over the years and has been a main obstruction in agricultural developments in Bangladesh.

Apart from such situations, Bangladesh has developed some very unique and excellent micro economic co-operative credit networks in recent years that can idle model for several other nations in the world.