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The People’s Republic of Bangladesh is located in South Asia and is mainly surrounded by India. It also borders on the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal. The country is for a large part situated on the banks of large rivers originated in the Himalaya’s, which cause one third of the land to flood annually. The estimated population is 164 million people.

 

Country Profile

Bangladesh is a parliamentary democracy and is divided in seven districts.  Average life expectancy at birth is 70.7 years. More than half of the production in Bangladesh is in the service sector. Almost thirty percent is produced by industry and a declining par of almost twenty percent of the GDP is produced by the agricultural sector.

The main export products of Bangladesh are garments, frozen fish and seafood, jute and jute goods, and leather. The main export partners are the United States and Western European countries. The main import products are machinery and equipment, chemicals, iron and steel, textiles, foodstuffs, petroleum products and cement districts.

General information

Land area: 147,570 sq km
Population: 150.5m
Population main towns in ‘000:
Dhaka: 11,814 (2006 government estimate)
Chittagong: 3,588
Khulna: 1,323
Rajshahi: 737
Climate: Tropical monsoon

Weather in Dhaka (altitude 3 metres)

Hottest month: July, 23-35°C
Coldest month: January, 11-28°C
Driest months: December and January

Diplomatic Relations

Bangladesh is a member of various international trade and business agreements.

  • Member of Commonwealth of Nations.
  • Founding member of the World Trade Organization.
  • Member of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), an arm of the World Bank that insures foreign investors against political risks such as expropriation, inconvertibility and war damage.
  • Party to the World Bank Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between states and nationals of other states which enables international arbitration of disputes with foreign investors.
  • Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s permanent committee on development co-operation related to industrial property.
  • Bangladesh is a member of several South Asian organizations, one of which, SAARC and its off shoot SAPTA.
  • In addition, Bangladesh has joined BIMSTEC (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand Economic Cooperation) and D-8 (involving Bangladesh, Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Nigeria, and Iran).