News Desk: The Washington-based think tank Heritage Foundation has published a list of the world’s freest economies in its annual report. In this list, Bangladesh’s score is 56.5. Bangladesh is an almost dependent economy. Scores have been determined on 12 variables in 4 categories.
These 4 categories are rule of law, size of government, capacity of policy makers and free market. Bangladesh has done the worst in the rule of law. The score on property rights is 38, on judicial efficiency 35.4 and on government integrity 26.7. The best has been done in the form of government. Taxes mean 74, government spending 93.6 and financial health score 7.3.
55.7 in business freedom, 7.6 in labor freedom and 69.9 in financial freedom. Score 63.4 in business freedom. Score 45 on investment freedom and 30 on financial freedom. According to the report, Bangladesh has made the most progress in one year in reducing the tax burden. Among the Asia-Pacific countries, Bangladesh ranks 25 out of 40 countries. However, Bangladesh’s score is lower than the global and regional average. Bangladesh has been moving slowly but steadily towards economic independence for the last one decade. The most hopeful is government control over spending. Bangladesh is ahead of many developed countries in this regard. Improvements are also being made in judicial efficiency. The banking sector will improve further in the days to come as it opens up to foreign competitors.
Resource rights in Bangladesh are not equal for everyone. The record keeping process in Bangladesh is complicated. There is also a lack of independence in the judiciary. Bangladesh’s personal income tax is 30 percent. Corporate tax is 25 percent. The tax burden is 7.8 percent of the total internal income. Government spending of 14.3 percent of total GDP over the last 3 years. The budget deficit is 4.4 percent. Public debt is 35.6 percent of GDP.
Although Bangladesh is one step ahead of India, the scores of the two countries are equal. In this case, the top 5 countries in the world are Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland and Ireland. The five countries lagging behind are Zimbabwe, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea.
There are 16 countries in 5 categories. Economies are divided into free, mostly free, almost free, almost dependent and fully dependent categories. Iraq, Libya, Liechtenstein, Somalia, Syria and Yemen were not on the list.