Agriculture contributes about 35 percent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nepal. But growth in the sector has been quite volatile in the last decade, tothe extent that the lowest and highest growth rates were recorded in consecutive years.

Today, nearly half of youth in the six South East European countries (SEE6) are not in the labor market, and one quarter is inactive—not in employment, education, or training.

South Asia’s trade almost doubled in the past decade, but the share of trade in GDP is still smaller (47 percent) than in East Asia (55 percent), and South Asia’s economic competitiveness continues to lag that of other regions. Part of the problem is the region’s container ports.

While scholars long recognized the importance of land markets as a key driver of rural non-farm development and transformation in rural areas, evidence on the extent of their operation and the nature of participants remains limited.

This is volume 3 of a three-volume publication on Bangladesh’s trade prospects. Bangladesh’s ambition is to build on its very solid growth and poverty reduction achievements, and accelerate growth to become a middle income country by 2021, and share prosperity more widely amongst its citizens.