 of this webinar series on South Asia and a broad coverage of issues in this series. We started the series with covering Pakistan and today I'm absolutely delighted to host Dr. Fahmida Khatun, who is the Executive Director of the Center for Policy Dialogue, a leading think tank in South Asia, and she accomplished her Master's and PhD in Economics from University College London and did her postdoctoral research at Columbia University in the United States. Dr. Khatun, welcome to this webinar here at South Asia Institute, the South Asia Institute. Dr. Khatun will be speaking today of something which is very, very important in the sense, you know, how this pandemic has really impacted some of the growth stories in South Asia. We have seen the case of Bangladesh from being a poster child of developmental politics historically and a country where there was a lot of focus of international institutions in terms of imparting or offering developmental aid to becoming almost a tiger economy, so to say, as far as South Asia goes and is currently one of the brightest economic growth sports. An expert on these issues, Dr. Khatun will be looking at the, you know, she'll be unpacking Bangladesh's growth story and we'll talk a little bit about COVID-19 and how the pandemic has impacted this growth story and what are the paths to recovery as we see and this is a question, I mean, Dr. Khatun, not just for Bangladesh, but for South Asia at large, but without further ado, the floor is all yours. You might have to unmute yourself, Dr. Khatun, sorry. Thank you very much, Dr. Avinash Pallival and I would like to thank you and your team at Suarez South Asia Institute for inviting me to this, you know, the talk. I'm very honored and humbled to share some of the experiences of Bangladesh's development path and also how the economy has fared during this COVID pandemic. As you have mentioned at the beginning, that, you know, the story of Bangladesh's development is something which is fascinating not only within Asia, South Asia, but also across the world. And I will share some of those, you know, growth narratives of Bangladesh, maybe towards the end or more elaborately during the Q&A session. But at this point in time, I would like to focus more on the more substantive topic at the moment by which the world economy is affected and also Bangladesh economy has been, you know, seriously affected. That is the COVID-19. So growth story will come along. But, you know, as I mentioned that I will dwell with it in more detail later on. So I'll just to, you know, give, taking care from your introduction that, yes, Bangladesh has been a star and a stellar performer in terms of economic growth. In fact, during the last two decades or so, Bangladesh's growth has been quite stable. And the macroeconomic fundamentals have been quite strong and steady. And as a result, we see that in the recent past, just before COVID, during the last financial year, that is in 2019, Bangladesh had experienced growth of 8.15, which is a very high growth. I mean, at one point in time, of course, India had experienced, China had experienced such growth. And it was expected that during a normal financial year in 2020, the growth would have been 8.2%. That was projected by the government of Bangladesh. However, because of COVID pandemic, the economy has been affected through various channels, because we know that because of the COVID, from the domestic front, and also from the external front, the economic consequences have been quite significant. And during a pandemic like COVID-19, any economy is bound to have multiple impacts. Though COVID had started with the health issue, but it has expanded to economic and social arena also. So in case of Bangladesh, we had the first case of COVID on 8th of March, though COVID had started, reshaded in China in December. So after three months, we had the first case. And then till March, since March till the 11th of November, that is till today, I mean, today evening. So we have a total number of cases as 4,23,062. And total death is 6,108. In terms of your percentage of affected people, total population of Bangladesh is 160 million. So the percentage is 0.26% of cases and percentage of death, it is 0.0037. In fact, I guess it is the second highest affected country within South Asia after India, because India has been severely affected being a large economy. So yes, in fact, it is the third highest country after Maldives and India. Now, the economic fallout, as I mentioned that there have been a health, social and economic fallout, but just let us focus on the economic fallout. It is projected that the economy will be affected significantly and various organizations have come up with various numbers. The government of Bangladesh has actually, which was projected 8.2% GDP growth for 2020. The government of Bangladesh has estimated now that in 2020, that is just the immediate past fiscal year in Bangladesh, the fiscal year is from July to June. So on 30th, June 2020, we had the fiscal year ended, the previous fiscal year, and according to government estimate, the growth is 5.2%. But as opposed to government estimation, the other international organizations have projected, and which is quite low, actually. If you look at the World Bank estimate, it is for 2020, it is 1.6%. Of course, these numbers are reviewed and revised every three months quarterly. And so IMF's number in October, as of October for 2020, it is 3.8% growth. And IMF has projected that next year in 2020, it will increase slightly, that is 4.4%. And other organizations like Economic Intelligence Unit, they also projected that this year, that is during the immediate past fiscal year, it is quite low. But next fiscal year, it will increase to 6.6%. At the Center for Policy Dialogue, we had projected, we had done some projection with limited data, and we had estimated that the growth will be about 2.5 as opposed to governments 5.2%. So however, there are many debates about the numbers, but the basic understanding is that the growth has been affected. But the next years, those are looking quite bright. As you know, that just a couple of weeks back in October, when the IMF had published their latest data on growth projections across the country, there was a big discussion that there was a comparison of growth data between Bangladesh and India that Bangladesh's GDP per capita is going to be higher than India. So that was quite a discussion. Some were very happy, of course, from the government side, but some had discussed that this is not something to be happy about because these numbers are volatile, and we don't know as yet where the COVID-19 will take us. So this is the growth scenario. But in terms of other aspects, for example, unemployment, poverty and inequality, so those were also going, those are also going to be affected because of the impact of COVID-19 because several studies have been undertaken through various surveys, mostly through telephonic survey, because of the pandemic, it's difficult to go to people and ask in person. So most of the surveys, those have found that unemployment has increased and also poverty has increased and as a result, inequality, which was already a problem before COVID-19, that is going to be also increased. In fact, from our center, we had estimated that the poverty rate, which was estimated to be 24.3 percent by the Bangladesh Vero statistics, that is apprehended to increase to 35 percent. And in terms of people who would be falling into poverty, an additional 17.5 million people could be falling into poverty. So this is, as a result, as I've mentioned, that inequality situation, which was quite worse in case of before COVID-19 because the top 5 percent of the population had a share of about 28 percent of the national income, whereas the bottom 5 percent only 0.23 percent. So you can see how the inequality has been increasing despite the growth. So the growth narrative has also created some challenges in terms of inequality, in terms of creating employment, in terms of distribution and justice, all these issues. We can discuss those later on. But the channels of the, this is not, the channels of economic fallout, which can be, you know, which are in fact true for many other countries also. So two channels, particularly one is the external channel. As you know, that Bangladesh economy has been integrating with the global economy. In your initial remarks, you said that the country was aid-dependent during, when it was independent, but it has gradually graduated from an aid-dependent country to a trade-dependent country. So, and through trade, through remittances, through foreign direct investment, through also foreign aid, the economy has been integrated with the global economy. So more than 40 percent of the economy has an exposure with the global economy. So any shock at the global level also impacts the Bangladesh economy. So when COVID-19 had started, and when the, you know, services sectors, industrial production, exports, imports, all had been affected, Bangladesh's, you know, exports and also Bangladesh's remittances, Bangladesh's foreign direct investment, all those have been affected also. Since, you know, as, you know, one of our two important sources of our foreign exchange income is the exports and particularly the export of the textiles and also remittance income. So that had really, have an initial period had a really significant impact. The channel for domestic impact is that through the distribution channel, particularly one is the production channel, of course, but we have seen that, you know, Bangladesh like, not unlike other countries that our domestic economy had been, had not been that, you know, dull during the, during the, you know, lockdown situation. One of the reasons is that agricultural production had been quite good, but of course the supply chain had been disrupted, the distribution channel, the marketing that had been, you know, disrupted. And as a result, domestic prices had been increased. And also because the production had been within, you know, in the urban areas production had stopped. There had been a lot of implications for the employment and income for a large section of population. Many have lost their employment and particularly in Bangladesh, about 85% of the people are engaged in the informal sector. So they are, they earn daily wages and, you know, for example, the drivers, the house help, the tea store, the owners of small roadside tea stalls and all these big shop pullers, those who work in saloons and all, so and the restaurants. So they had, they had been the direct, you know, victims of this economic shutdown. So that through this is so you can see that both domestic and external channels have been quite strong. Now, in view of the implications or the impact of COVID-19, the government like many other governments across the world government had undertaken a number of measures. And in the form of stimulus package that the government says, but the stimulus package comprises of two packages. In fact, one is the fiscal stimulus, but the other is the liquidity to support because the total amount of stimulus packages, you know, $12,113 million, which is 3.7% of GDP, which is a reasonably good amount, but not so good because some countries have, you know, provided 10% of their GDP, even over 10% of the GDP as stimulus packages. But, you know, being a resource constrained country, 3.7% to start with is not a bad number. However, as I mentioned that more than 80%, almost 82% of this package is in the form of loans, liquidity supports, loans from the banks. So the banks will provide support to the businesses, to the large businesses, to the small, medium enterprises, to the agriculture sector, to the export-oriented sectors, so all these. So that is that is one of the ways to support and these will be dispersed through the commercial banks. Out of this, you know, the liquidity support which will be, which are being provided by the banks, the government will take care of half of the interest rate. For example, you know, 9% out of 9% interest rate for the SMA, the government will take care of the 5% and the 4% will be, you know, provided by the person or the business which will take the loan. So through that, you know, way the government is providing the support. Otherwise, the fiscal stimulus that includes, you know, of course, special support to the initially the support was given to for medical causes to food to the doctors, nurses and health workers, a special honorarium and then also for the procurement of rice and also some amount for the, you know, direct support, direct cash distribution to the targeted population who are marginalized, who are very extremely poor and also in the form of agricultural subsidies. So these are the fiscal stimulus. Now, as I have mentioned, this is to start with, these are good initiatives, but the problem and let me also show that how Bangladesh, where does Bangladesh stand? Asian Development Bank has, has estimated or compared the per capita package of, you know, stimulus packages. And in terms of per capita Bangladesh is per capita stimulus package is $75. Of course, because Bangladesh has a large population, you can see on the slide that Bhutan, Bhutan's per capita package is $571. It's quite, you know, it's the highest in the tradition countries, South Asia and also some Asian countries. I have shown here Cambodia and also Vietnam. So Maldives also is the second highest with $325 and Vietnam provided $277 per capita. So as I, this is just to, you know, sorry, sorry to interrupt you. The power point, unfortunately, the power point, unfortunately, is not visible. So Sunil, let's be quick. Just wanted to let you know about that. Okay. Okay, let me just quickly, I have two, you know, two sections. I'll very briefly go through those sections. So, so what has happened? What is the experience so far? The initiatives which have been taken and the experience because of the impact of COVID-19, what has happened? We have seen that, you know, till today, some, some of the indicators, economic indicators have started to show positive signs. One is the export of readymade garments and the other is remittances. So we have initially around April or end of March and April, many buyers had cancelled their orders. So those buyers have come back, they have started to reinstate. And as a result, we see an increase in the export, particularly the readymade garments export. And the second is that we also see a big jump in terms of remittance income. So during a crisis like COVID, what are the causes? Whereas because we have seen that many workers have come back, but on the other hand, we see that there is an increase of remittances. The explanation, the plausible explanation is that during crisis period, the workers, the professionals, they try to send as much as they can to their distressed families. This is one. And since secondly, since many have come back and they don't know when they would go back for work, so they have brought whatever they have all they're saving brought back. And the third reason is also that the remittances coming through formal channels, through banking channels, that has increased. And the government has given some incentive, 2% cash incentive, if it comes through banking channel, that is one of the reasons. Now, the other also issue is that as I have mentioned initially that the agriculture sector had done quite well, despite COVID year, the farmers of Bangladesh had done tremendous job. That is another strong area when the Bangladesh economy has done well. The other area is that because of the import, lower import, we have seen that the import payment has been low. And at the international level, since the world crisis, the fuel prices have been low, that has created a cushion for Bangladesh because Bangladesh is a net importer of petroleum oil. So these are some of the factors. Of course, the foreign funding has also increased during this. Many international organizations, they have come up with support. So those have worked so far. However, there are uncertainty because still today we don't know what road or what path will the COVID pandemic take and how the other countries will be recovering from this pandemic. That will also determine how fast and how smoothly Bangladesh can bounce back. This is one. And then lastly, some of the challenges I would mention before I finish. The challenges are that the stimulus packages, whatever it is, those have not been dispersed evenly across the sectors, particularly though the large industries, the export oriented readymade government, they could take advantage of this stimulus package. They could take loans. The small entrepreneurs, they have not been able to access the funds for various reasons because of their informality, because of their size and because of their lack of banking records. We can discuss it later. And also the support to the urban poor, a lot of emphasis to the rural poor is given, but the urban poor is often neglected. And also the women entrepreneurs particularly have been in a disadvantageous situation within the MSME sector. And that's why the future road to recovery will have to focus on three pronged approach by looking at the health, economic and social sectors. In order to recover and bounce back, firstly, this is a health crisis. And as we have been discussing all along, even before COVID period that health sector suffers from lack of resources. Adequate investment is needed at present in the health sector in Bangladesh that receives only less than 1% of GDP. With this limited resource, you can imagine how efficiently we can distribute or distribute the health services. On the economic front, firstly, there is a need for more support, more stimulus packages, more cash support to the poor. But for that, we also need fiscal space. As we know that we are being a least developed country, we are graduating. We can discuss it later. That's another issue of Bangladesh's growth narrative, positive growth narrative. But being a least developed country, we have extremely low tax GDP issue. So, unless and until we can increase the tax GDP issue and our revenue income, there is limited fiscal space. Because as we know during COVID, the international community has also priorities to distribute across the world. Even if we have more demand, we can't have more resources from outside. So, we have to generate from our domestic sources. This is one. The other area is that, of course, during COVID, there have been a lot of social implications, social impact. One is that because of these lockdowns and because of the limited mobility, the education sector has been extremely affected. The schools and colleges and universities, a limited number of educational institutions could provide the online education, but most of the students are outside this facility, particularly in the rural areas. So, Bangladesh had achieved quite significant achievement in terms of gender parity in case of primary education. And it was going to narrow the differences between girl student and boy students at the secondary level also. But the COVID has, we have behind that COVID is going to widen that gap. And we also observed that the girls, they are being married off by their parents at an early age during COVID because they don't, the poor parents do not want to take the responsibility. This is a burden on their family. So, they are marrying their daughters off, which will have an impact on the maternal mortality and child mortality because these girls will have now, you know, will bear children at an early age. So, this will have an impact on the overall health situation. So, there should be also improvement and investment for human capital. So, this is another area. I think I'm running out of time. I should stop here. So, broadly what I try to mention that more investment across the sector and more investment for also generating employment and increasing the domestic demand. And during financial crisis, revival of domestic demand is crucial. And through that, the economy can revive and bounce back. So, with these words, I end, but I would be happy to answer the queries and questions. Thank you very much. Dr. Khartun, thank you so much for such a comprehensive outlay of Bangladesh's economic crisis because of the pandemic, the various challenges it faces, but also kind of outlining in considerable detail how they can be tackled. I have a list of, you know, very fascinating, I mean, points which are jotted down which struck to me and have some questions. But before I kind of go into my own round of questions and thoughts, I would like to kind of open the floor for our participants. And if any of you are interested in asking the question, making a comment, please use the Q&A section below. You can see it in front of the, on your screen. Or else if you want to kind of ask the question directly, just raise your hands and I'll give you the platform. Please do remember to introduce yourself. So before I move ahead, any questions at the moment? All right. In that case, I'll start with a question myself. Dr. Khartun, you mentioned, you mentioned about a package, a national package that has been offered by the government of Bangladesh, of which you said 82% is to support liquidity. And when you were mentioning that all the furlough schemes that are going on in the United Kingdom, where people are being paid almost 80% of their salaries from, you know, government pockets still now it has been extended till March. The quintessential question here is, where does this 82% of package where the government is dispersing money to the banks? Where are these funds coming from? Is it from a national reserve that is being now being depleted? Or is it something, you know, where is the revenue generation really happening from? Because if we are looking at a prolonged pandemic, that is an issue that will become very pressing, especially with the kind of, you know, both the social implications to which perhaps I'll come in a second. But financially, this seems very difficult to sustain beyond the point, especially if the trade dependent economy doesn't go back to that kind of, that those levels of trade. So what are your thoughts on that? Okay. Thank you very much. This is a really very important question that where does this money would come from? So this 82%, which is a large amount of money. When the government had announced this package, they had, as I've mentioned, that they had given the responsibility to the banking sector that banks will provide. However, as you know, that banks have their own, you know, credit portfolio and credit activities. On top of that, this amount of money, where would the money come from? So in order to create liquidity, the government had taken, or the central bank, I would say, the central bank had taken some monetary policy measures. One is that they had reduced the CRR, that credit reserve ratio, to create liquidity in the bank, and also the improved the advanced deposit ratio that is also, so these are the two important policy measures they had taken to create liquidity space that they had. So, and apart from that, I think the banks themselves also could have some space in the sense that during COVID, they, some of the business activities, most of the business activities were low. So the regular credit disbursement were not probably, there was no, probably there was less demand from the businesses to, you know, on the on the credit. So, so far, we have not heard any, you know, any situation where the banks are unable to provide, rather what has been allocated or what has been earmarked, those have not been utilized so far. Because particularly as I, during my presentation, I mentioned that particularly the allocation for the small and medium enterprises that has not been disbursed, I think, you know, not even half less than about 20 to 30% only have been disbursed. The only sector which has, which could access the fund is the export-oriented readymade garments. They could quickly, because they are large, you know, industries and they are very act also in terms of accessing doing the, completing the formalities. But in case of the small and medium enterprises, what has happened that many of many businesses, the smaller ones, they are not, you know, used to transact with the banks. Many smaller ones, particularly those which are owned by women, they don't have a record, credit record with the banks. Now, when this measures have been announced, so the banks, the central bank had requested or the advise the banks to disperse the loans on the basis of bank-client relationship. But these businesses do not have any bad relationship with the banks. So, and the banks also do not want to take the risk of providing loans to someone they don't know, someone which is new to the system. So, as a result, there's a huge problem, though the, you know, though the central bank has provided, you know, credit guarantee scheme, but still because of the informality of the, because many of the businesses, they do not, they are not registered. They do not have a trade license. They do not have a, you know, the tax number. So we call it tax identification number. So they're not into the formal system. So as a result, they're facing the challenges of accessing the funds. So those funds are still unutilized. So till now, what I, we have observed that the support, the liquidity crisis has not been so, you know, so difficult. Liquidity has been adequate so far. But we don't know when we recommend that more stimulus packages are needed, then how the government will, you know, generate or the central bank will create liquidity space. That is a question whether, you know, probably they will have to cut down the rates further and take other measures. I mean, of course, there have been also discussion that, you know, printing money is another way, but again, there are debates, you know, whether to go for printing money or not. That's the big debate in a country where the banking sector itself is also suffering many governance related challenges. Thank you so much, Dr. Kattun. We have questions from the flow now. We have three questions. I'll start. The first question is by Samia and I'll literally just read this out. Thank you. So thank you for your eliminating lecture on the current economic condition in Bangladesh. Just thinking from another perspective, where does Bangladesh place its ongoing refugee crisis in the midst of this newly emerging economic crisis? A good question, especially, you know, with the situation, the Rohingya situation and the numbers that we are looking at in and around Cox's Bazaar and the debate around Bhashan char and relocating them to to that island, a controversial debate. But where does the money come for those kind of issues, which are very deeply humanitarian, but also very, very, very challenging? Okay. Yes, this is a very important question because even before the before the COVID crisis, the situation of the Rohingya refugees wasn't very good because because they were living in a situation which is not quite comfortable. But on the other hand, the since this was an international crisis, and this was a crisis also, which was imposed on Bangladesh, which and as you know that Bangladesh being a country with limited resources is not in a situation to support all these, you know, refugees for a long time. So international community had come forward. Many organizations had given support direct support and others were taking care of their livelihoods, somewhere taking care of the health aspect, somewhere providing education. So during COVID situation also it is quite risky because it is a health crisis. And as we know that in order to contain the spread of COVID, some certain health protocols are important. And one of these is to maintain physical distance, which is very difficult in a situation in a place where the Rohingyas live. But however, many international organizations are working, even not only international organizations, Bangladeshi organizations, also for example, Bragg, organizations like Bragg, they are also working on health issues. So they with limited capacity, though the Rohingyas are being taken care of. Thank you, Dr. Khatun. The next question is by Giovanni Walensisi. Again, thank you for the very interesting presentation. Considering the relatively stable fundamentals, is the government considering debt monetization in order to respond to this crisis? And secondly, business environment reforms could be a low-hanging fruit since they could have limited fiscal impact but unleash private sector initiative. Is there any discussions on these issues at this point? Yes, thank you. Two important questions. At this point in time, there is no discussion on or no consideration regarding the debt monetization. You asked, yeah, debt monetization till now. So that's not in the radar till now. Secondly, of course, the business environment reform. Definitely, because this is a perennial issue, we have been discussing about investment, more investment in order to have more employment generation, because as though the country is progressing at a very fast pace. However, if we look at the investment GDP ratio or the employment, which I have mentioned already, that is not as expected. Private investment is hovering around 23% of GDP for the last five, six years or so, which is not adequate for a country which aspires to become an upper-income country by 2030 and also which wants to have a growth momentum above 8%. So the private investment is crucial, to some extent the government, the public investment is increasing, because we have seen that we have been seeing that a lot of large infrastructure projects are now ongoing. But in order to have more employment, private investment is crucial. And why the private investment is not coming? That is a big question. Why are not they encouraged? Many issues are attached to that. Of course, one is that the issue of infrastructure development. However, for the last couple of years, as I have mentioned that in large infrastructure projects are being undertaken and the issue of power supply, adequate power supply, that problem has also been resolved. But many would argue that there are some uncertainty, which is though we have stable or political stability at this moment in time. But for some reasons, the private sector investors are not comfortable or confident to invest. And as a result of low private investment, foreign direct investment is not also picking up, because any foreign investment would look at the private investment rate before they come to a country. So from that, they would judge to invest, whether they would invest in the country or not. Of course, that's a number you have talked about or recommended for the business environment reforms. Some of the reforms, apart from infrastructure, is of course, the reduction of rate tapism, bureaucratic, increasing the bureaucratic smoothness, the time lag. And of course, some also say that there's also demand for reduction of corporate tax and also the improvement of governance. In other words, the perennial problem or a list development, your poor economies or even developing economies in South Asian economies and African economies in many developing countries also corruption is an issue. So that also these are the factors which forbid or which discourages the private sectors to invest. Thank you, Dr. Khatum. There are words of appreciation coming in for you from Bangladesh. But I mean, you mentioned private sector and there is a question that one of the questions here is what can be done to attract more private sector investment by Dan Pasha. And I'll come to some questions before that in a second. But just to kind of push a little bit on this issue of the relationship between private capital and the political situation in Bangladesh. Now, you did mention that there is political stability in Bangladesh. The Sheikh Hasina government, it won a mandate somewhat controversial, but still a strong clear mandate. But we do know that there are concerns about relatively heavy-handed dealing with the opposition as well at the same time. You know, we know that the dissent against the Avami League is also something which is very considerable. Do you think that that degree that kind of security concerns might be fueling or might continue to fuel concerns within the private sector economy? So is there a link between between these two or you think they're actually not that connected the rise, you know, all these attacks that we saw in the bakery in the Dhaka, you know, I think a few years ago they were attacks by Islamic State elements. There are attacks of, you know, the Neo, you know, basically the relationship of the BNP with the more Islamic right. Is that a concern in your view that remains or it's not really a concern as far as the economics of the situation goes? Okay, the issue of, you know, the rise of Islamic forces and as a result of which the incident saw and happened, you know, a couple of years back. I think over time that has that has faded away a little bit because the government, as you have mentioned, heavy handedly controlled or, you know, took over the situation, controlled the situation to a large extent. And because of that, the fear was that foreign direct investment might be hampered. But we haven't seen a radical reduction, significant reduction as a, as a result of that. Yes, initially, there was some apprehension that whether this will be, you know, a secure place to invest, because investment comes in bulk and, you know, for longer term, it's not a matter of two, three years, but, you know, for a longer period. But we, as I mentioned that, you know, over the within one or two years that that has, I think, faded a bit at the confidence has regained. But the issue is not, you know, I would say this issue is not about the security aspect, but rather the other aspects, I would mention the governance issue, efficiency in the management, efficiency in the bureaucracy. All these are more important right now because if an investor, because security issue is also, it's not unique to Bangladesh also because that's also an issue which is global, which is universal, it can happen to any country. So then that has been taken care of to some extent. But other issues, the corruption, the governance issue is traditional strengthening. These are the issues which are more important to an investor. And as I have mentioned, though many economists also debate on the issue of corporate tax, but we, what we have observed that there is a large demand from the corporate sector to for reduction of corporate tax. This is another issue. So these are more important issues and also skilled human resource. This is another thing because for investment, you not only, you know, need technology, technology would come with the FDI, but some degree of efficiency, human resource efficiency is important for that. So those are more important factors than the security aspect, I would say. Thank you for the clarification, Dr. Kathun. On that note about institutional kind of resilience, there is a question by Mariam that this year Bangladesh has been experiencing some of the worst flooding on record. Has COVID and its socioeconomic disruption affected governments flood response? Or do you think that it can affect governments flood response? Yes, I would say to some extent because we had from our center, we had undertaken a study and we had looked into the implications of flood and how this dual challenge flood on the one hand and then COVID on the other hand, how they have affected the recovery. And indeed, because of the COVID-19 situation, many, you know, the all the support which were otherwise could have been provided to the flood affected people that had been low. So I would say yes, a short answer is that because of COVID and COVID induced disruption, the flooding or the victims of flood, many had not been able to get adequate support. Thank you, Dr. Kathun. There's a question by Kathinka Everston. You mentioned that women entrepreneurs have especially have been especially disadvantaged throughout the COVID crisis. Could you elaborate on that? What are the dynamics that make women entrepreneurs more disadvantaged? This is this is a question. I mean, it's you covered part of, you know, addressed it to some extent already in your sessions, but this is something which is very important in the sense that we, for me, when I look at Bangladesh's economy, part of the reason for the success is also the inclusivity, the gender inclusivity that has been demonstrated in the past few years when, you know, it has almost coincided or almost caused, if not entirely, then definitely partially and strongly Bangladesh's economic revival. How do you think is that fundamental revival at risk because of this gendered kind of gender disadvantage that the pandemic promises? This is a very question, a very important question too, because during my presentation also, I was trying to bring up this issue that women's contribution to Bangladesh economy has been significant in the labor market, labor force participation is about 36%. But apart from this, in many ways, all women in Bangladesh is rural women, urban women, they are integrated into the economy in one way or the other. And that's why we see that, you know, the one of the reasons, as you have mentioned, that Bangladesh's economic progress has been made so far because of the contribution of women. Now, because of COVID-19 situation, many women entrepreneurs who are in a disadvantageous situation. And we have, we are currently undertaking a study on the impact of COVID-19 on women entrepreneurs and how stimulus packages have reached to them. Surprisingly, or maybe naturally, you can say that many, most of them have not been able to access the fund. And sadly, many don't even know regarding the presence of the stimulus packages that such a stimulus package has been announced, they are not aware of that lack of information is one important barrier for them. And many of course, as I've mentioned, do not have the capacity to comply with the formalities which are needed for the government. So I would say that because of COVID, there is an apprehension of widening gender gap. Bangladesh had done very well during the Millennium Development Goal achievements. It was a stellar performer in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. And it had also achieved goals with regard to gender empowerment. However, COVID might reverse many of the achievements, or it might undo many of the achievements which have been done. And during my presentation, I have also mentioned the widening gap between the girl children and male children or boy children in terms of education. So through education, through economic opportunities, there will be, there is an apprehension that the gender gap will widen. Therefore, we are demanding specific targeted support for the women and for the entrepreneurs and also direct cash support to those who are really behind. And there are special types of groups, the transgender community, those and also the other marginalized groups who are beyond the radar of the policymakers or a radar of our of us. So those are not being able to take advantage of the facilities or the benefits which are announced by the government. Dr. Khadim, there's a question by Rizal who says that the readymade garment sector was reviving from the impact of COVID. But now in the US and UK and Europe broadly, we are seeing the second wave hit. We are right now, I mean, we are living under lockdown. So do you think that is going to impact the export of readymade garments from Bangladesh? Would that be a significant issue? Yes, definitely, because particularly Bangladesh's export to the EU market is very significant and also US followed by USA. And though in August, July, August, September, the many of the orders have been reinstated, the buyers have come back. But with the second wave, this is this may not be the momentum may not be continued because because of this COVID-19, we are hoping that during Christmas, there might be more new orders, more orders. But now with the situation which are being observed in the European countries, many countries are going back to lockdown, and many countries are, you know, shutting their economies. And so this is going to have an impact on the RMG sector. But it is also expected that once, as soon as the other European economies or the US economy bounces back, then Bangladesh exporters will be able to take advantage of this. Thank you, Dr. Khatun. I, you know, in my, in my, you know, when I'm working, I usually focus a lot on India's relationship in my own scholarship with its neighbors and Bangladesh is a very important relationship. I can't resist but ask, how does the government in Dhaka actually view the kind of narrative coming out of New Delhi, especially how does Dhaka view New Delhi's approach in terms of trying to, trying to support regional countries in, in, you know, facing, facing the brunt of the pandemic, especially with Maldives, we have seen a lot of public diplomacy happen, you know, where New Delhi saying that, look, we are sending, we are sending support to Mali. And similarly, they're trying to portray themselves as a net provider of security, you know, at the point of, during the pandemic. Do you see much uptake? And do you see, you know, Dhaka takes New Delhi seriously when it comes to dealing with the pandemic given, given India's own kind of economic situation and, and the relative inability to handle the pandemic itself? Yeah, this is a very, very important question. And I'm happy that you have raised. I also wanted to touch upon that the, you know, regional cooperation aspect of it. And we have seen that at the beginning of this COVID outbreak, COVID-19 outbreak, there have been initiative in, in the SAR framework that there's a fund where Bangladesh government has also contributed, the Indian government had contributed. So this was a very good initiative, I would say, particularly in the context when we see that SAR has become dysfunctional. It is almost a dead organization. And we have not seen any activities or any initiative during the last couple of years. So any regional cooperation within the South Asian context is very, is a very encouraging initiative, I would say. And I see a lot of opportunities are also there. We have seen that, you know, already India is manufacturing COVID medicine, the vaccines. And there has been commitment from the Indian government to provide the vaccines Bangladesh as the, as part of the neighborhood first policy. We see there are some initiative to provide the vaccines to Bangladesh. This is a good initiative. And I think there are, in the recent year, recent, during the last, you know, couple of weeks, I would say that we see a renewed initiative in terms of support, particularly in view of the COVID-19 situation, in view of dealing with the impact of COVID-19 situation. So I think this is also an opportunity for reviving, reviving the regional cooperation and also to have an entry point after a long time. This could be an entry point for regional cooperation. I'm optimistic about it. It's very nice to hear someone being optimistic about regional cooperation in South Asia, but I'm not surprised that it is coming from someone in Bangladesh, because the view from Delhi and especially Islamabad, given the geopolitical situation, looks very grim. Dr. Khatun, thank you so much for your enlightening sessions. Such, you know, I've really kind of learned a lot, and I'm sure so have all our participants this afternoon. As you say, there is a lot at stake here. There's a lot at stake for the people of Bangladesh, for the Bangladesh economy and the region. But let's hope that the responses and the packages that the government has kind of initiated do reach the recipients and the issues of distribution, of course, never easy to address. But I hope that there is some degree of thought and action on those sections which are marginalised but are actually very important in the economic growth and upkeep of Bangladesh. Thank you so much and thank you to all of you who were able to attend the session. It has been recorded and will be put online if I remember correctly. But before I sign off, I would like to just make another announcement of the third webinar that we'll have. It will be next week on the issue of ongoing India-Pakistan tensions and how these two countries, especially after what Dr. Khatun said about the inability of Saq to kind of come together, but she still remains hopeful whether India and Pakistan are themselves hopeful about having some sort of a conversation going, something that is badly needed not just because of the pandemic for a variety of different reasons. Whether that is possible at the moment or not, please join us next week for the third webinar in the South Asia Institute webinar series. But once again, Dr. Feminda Khatun, thank you for joining us from Dhaka and wish you all the best and have a good day. Thank you very much.