Economic Overview
The economy has grown 5-6% over the past few years despite inefficient state-owned enterprises, delays in exploiting natural gas resources, insufficient power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. bangladesh remains a poor, overpopulated, and inefficiently-governed nation. although more than half of gdp is generated through the service sector, nearly two-thirds of bangladeshis are employed in the agriculture sector, with rice as the single-most-important product. garment exports and remittances from bangladeshis working overseas, mainly in the middle east and east asia, fuel economic growth.
Environmental Issues
Many people are landless and forced to live on and cultivate flood-prone land; water-borne diseases prevalent in surface water; water pollution, especially of fishing areas, results from the use of commercial pesticides; ground water contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic; intermittent water shortages because of falling water tables in the northern and central parts of the country; soil degradation and erosion; deforestation; severe overpopulation
Government Type
Parliamentary democracy
Population
153,546,896 (july 2008 est.)
Location
Southern asia, bordering the bay of bengal, between burma and india
Area
Total: 144,000 sq km
land: 133,910 sq km
water: 10,090 sq km
Slightly smaller than iowa
Country Aliases
Conventional long form: people's republic of bangladesh
conventional short form: bangladesh
local long form: gana prajatantri banladesh
local short form: banladesh
former: east bengal, east pakistan
Capital
Name: dhaka
geographic coordinates: 23 43 n, 90 24 e
time difference: utc+6 (11 hours ahead of washington, dc during standard time)
Military Service
16 years of age for voluntary military service; 17 years of age for officers (both with parental consent); conscription legally possible in emergency, but has never been implemented (2008)
International Disputes
Discussions with india remain stalled to delimit a small section of river boundary, exchange territory for 51 small bangladeshi exclaves in india and 111 small indian exclaves in bangladesh, allocate divided villages, and stop illegal cross-border trade, migration, violence, and transit of terrorists through the porous border; bangladesh protests india's fencing and walling off high-traffic sections of the porous boundary; a joint bangladesh-india boundary commission resurveyed and reconstructed 92 missing pillars in 2007; dispute with india over new moore/south talpatty/purbasha island in the bay of bengal deters maritime boundary delimitation; after 21 years, bangladesh resumes talks with burma on delimiting a maritime boundary
Sources: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
