DHAKA, Jan 12: The average purchasing capacity of Bangladeshis is just a half of the citizens’ average spending in the Asia-Pacific region, shows a report on ‘Purchasing Power Parities and Real Expenditures’ covering 23 national economies.

The report, published recently by the Economics and Research Department of the Asian Development Bank, shows that Bangladesh is the last but one — only above Nepal — on the scale that put nine countries below the regional average in terms of ‘per capita real consumption expenditure’.

“Three economies with the lowest per capita real expenditures are Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, all of which are more than 80 per cent below the regional average,” says the report.Hong Kong stands first in the ranking. Bangladesh and Nepal ranked 50th and 45th on the scale respectively, while Asia-Pacific average assumed at 100. Hong Kong, now a part of China, has the actual average consumption of HK$125,303 as against HK$6,456 applicable for Bangladesh.

In the below average list, Bhutan has got highest mark with 96 followed by China with 87, Mongolia 80, India 72, Vietnam 65, Cambodia 60 and Lao 55. Just above average are placed three of Bangladesh’s South Asian neighbours — Sri Lanka with 136, Maldives with 109 and Pakistan with 102.

Economies such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal and Bangladesh, where government salaries are found to be very low, would have relatively high per capita real consumption of government services compared with economies such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore where government salaries are much higher.

“These results did not appear plausible to statisticians familiar with the ways that governments function in the region,” observes the report which has been prepared under the lending agency’s international comparison programme 2005.

A total of 57 Bangladeshi markets — 37 urban and 20 rural — were selected for the survey.

Bangladesh has been placed 13th in terms of its share of gross domestic product at 1.45 per cent in Asia. China alone holds 44.3 per cent of the region’s GDP, India has 19.47 per cent, Iran 6.11 per cent, Indonesia 5.89per cent, Pakistan 3.07 per cent, Malaysia 2.49 and Singapore 1.5 per cent.

In South Asia, Sri Lanka has 0.57pc, Nepal 0.23pc and Bhutan 0.02pc shares of the region’s GDP.

“A striking feature of the data is the huge dispersion, with the richest economy having a per capita real GDP of more than 40 times that of the poorest,’ says the report.

The economies of Asia and the Pacific accounted for over 25 per cent of world production, as measured by GDP converted to US dollar as a common reference currency, using purchasing power parities.

Brunei Darussalam and Singapore are among the smallest economies in the region, with their per capita real expenditures the first and second highest, respectively, at more than 17 times the regional average, finds the report.

The per capita volume of GDP for Hong Kong is 58 times that of Bangladesh on an exchange rate basis but only 28 times on a purchasing power parities basis, says the report pointing out that the prices for non-tradable products are generally low relative to the prices for tradable ones in low-income countries compared with high-income countries.