People should not feel ashamed to learn from the experiences of others — especially if those others have attained a high level of progress and development. Nonetheless, to seek knowledge from a poor country which has given us vast quantities of unskilled cheap labor is something that demands an explanation. My comments derive from what I learned from a statement by Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie which was issued during the minister’s recent visit to that country.
After visiting two pharmaceutical factories and saying he was impressed by the quality of the medicines produced there, the minister went on to say that the Kingdom looked forward to importing medicines from Bangladesh. The drugs produced in Bangladesh, he pointed out, meet international standards.
The minister was accompanied to Bangladesh by a high-ranking delegation from the Ministry of Health which included the deputy minister and the assistant deputy minister in addition to a number of department heads.
A Bangladeshi Internet site has stated that another Saudi delegation will visit the country in the future to conclude contracts for hiring Bangladeshi doctors to work in the Kingdom.
What does all this mean? It means — plainly and simply — that Bangladesh has gone many steps beyond us in building an advanced pharmaceutical industry and has enough doctors that it can allow some to go abroad to work. I am glad to read of the achievements of a fellow Muslim country. What I want explained to me, however, is how this has happened.
Bangladesh is a country with a population of 133 million and, in 2003, had a GNP of $285.8 billion; ours, by the way, was $286.2 billion, according to the CIA World Factbook. Bangladesh’s annual per capita income is $1,900 compared to ours which is $11,800, and our population is some 22 million. Given these facts, how did it manage to excel us and build two advanced pharmaceutical factories?
Our Saudi doctors account for only 19 percent of all doctors working in the Kingdom even though the first medical college in our country was built more then 40 years ago. Are we sending Saudi doctors to work abroad?
I find myself unable to understand the reasons for all this. I think it must all have to do with proper planning and efficiency in organizing and distributing the country’s resources, good administration of public money and reducing extravagant expenditures.
