Bilateral Cooperation Between Australia and Bangladesh in Diverse Areas: An Analysis to Cope With the COVID-19 Aftermath

Introduction

Bangladesh is a country which is gradually trying to develop her economy from the least developed country (LDC) to a upper middle-income country by 2031. Hopefully by the 2026.Australian economy is one of the advanced economic countries of the globe. There is a wide scope of common standard of bilateral collaboration between the process of socio-economic expansion between Australia and Bangladesh in multi-sectoral areas through diversity of cultural attainment by bilateral cooperation. Australia and Bangladesh do have dynamic characteristics with the opportunities of equity and performing well such as to mitigate goals of Commonwealth, World Trade Organizations and United Nations. Australia takes mutual areas together with human rights, egalitarianism, the rule of law, reasonable expansion atmosphere, gender fairness, women’s authorization, and international peace and security. According to Gross National Income per capita in 2019 Australia was ranked 14 with USD 55,100 (Atlas methodology) while Bangladesh was 151 with USD 1940 (Atlas methodology) and Australia was raked 23 in terms of PPP with 51,680(Purchasing power parity) and Bangladesh was ranked 145 with USD 5,200considering purchasing power parity(World Bank, 2021a). n the year 2022, Bangladesh and Australia will celebrate Fifty years of diplomatic relationship.

The world is going through a grim situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only people from all over the countries are dying but its impacts are also felt socially and on the global economies with the dysfunctional macroeconomic scenario, markets, and disrupted global supply-chains. Both aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks have become acute due to COVID-19. Inadequate supply of essential medicines, food crisis, unemployment and increasing government debts are creating alarming situations across the world. The people’s purchasing power has been diminishing day by day. The informal sector has also been impacted compared to the formal sector.

The Business Standard newspaper (2021) reported that Bangladesh and Australia had signed a Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement (TIFA) agreement, the first of its kind between the two countries on 14th September 2021.The newspaper reported that the framework was expected to provide a platform for institutional economic interaction and open new opportunities for trade and investment between the two countries. And the daily newspaper also commented that under the agreement, a joint working group will be formed keeping representation from related sectors and sub-sectors. Australia had proposed hosting an inaugural meeting of the working group in early 2022.Australia is the member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) which is a strategic dialogue among the United States, India, Japan and Australia.Yilmazkuday(2019) argued that any policy analysis should be achieved at the disaggregated level and then aggregated up to obtain macro propositions for the purpose country; otherwise, the upper-tier macro elasticity measures can be misleading due to the way that foreign products are aggregated at the destination country.

When the financial crisis started in USA, Australia did not get under recession due to appropriate policy’s applicability’s. Bangladesh has been receiving Australia’s aid from mid-seventies though it is an insignificant in real terms. Trade and investment normally can be done with wider areas and in right direction so that it benefits both the countries. However, Bangladesh is still a developing country, so it gets wider opportunity to improve her economy. Gradually Australia’s relationship with Bangladesh is strengthening. Strengthening the relationship between trade and investment will bring pareto optimality between two countries. Earlier Australian Bank ANZ Grindlays worked in Bangladesh. The bank created lot of entrepreneurs still mid-eighties. However, gradually trade and investment has strengthen which will ultimately bring fruitful results for both the countries. This will assist to raise economic growth and productivity of the country, improving standard of living and ultimately work as a push factor for economic development of Bangladesh. Ready Made Garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh has a lion share in the Australian market.