The announced gas price hike will likely trigger a significant industrial slowdown. While this presents clear economic challenges, there may be a silver lining in potentially reducing public debt's outsized role in our financial system.
This shift, combined with the new merchant electricity generation policy, could catalyze a solar boom similar to what Pakistan experienced in 2023-24. However, we face some unique constraints here. The current ban on solar installations on agricultural land means companies are limited to rooftop solar and whatever additional capacity they can squeeze onto their private property, like garage tops. We might see rural households increasingly going off-grid with solar solutions – a pattern already common in rural Bangladesh.
The emerging ecosystem of SMEs involved in solar Commercial & Industrial PPAs could become an interesting political force. They may organize to push for lifting the agricultural land restrictions, much like how working-class Bangladeshis successfully drove the electric three-wheeler revolution despite resistance from urban middle-class circles.
The tariffs on solar imports remain problematic. While there's a vocal pro-import substitution lobby defending these tariffs, I maintain that reducing our exposure to volatile energy imports should take precedence over nurturing a domestic solar panel assembly industry. Energy independence is more crucial for sustainable industrialization than protecting this particular manufacturing sector.
The announced gas price hike will likely trigger a significant industrial slowdown. While this presents clear economic challenges, there may be a silver lining in potentially reducing public debt's outsized role in our financial system.
This shift, combined with the new merchant electricity generation policy, could catalyze a solar boom similar to what Pakistan experienced in 2023-24. However, we face some unique constraints here. The current ban on solar installations on agricultural land means companies are limited to rooftop solar and whatever additional capacity they can squeeze onto their private property, like garage tops. We might see rural households increasingly going off-grid with solar solutions – a pattern already common in rural Bangladesh.
The emerging ecosystem of SMEs involved in solar Commercial & Industrial PPAs could become an interesting political force. They may organize to push for lifting the agricultural land restrictions, much like how working-class Bangladeshis successfully drove the electric three-wheeler revolution despite resistance from urban middle-class circles.
The tariffs on solar imports remain problematic. While there's a vocal pro-import substitution lobby defending these tariffs, I maintain that reducing our exposure to volatile energy imports should take precedence over nurturing a domestic solar panel assembly industry. Energy independence is more crucial for sustainable industrialization than protecting this particular manufacturing sector.
Thank you. Useful writeup. But can kindly cite data sources in a revised version? I ask because your piece is a good reference.
All data are from BBS or BB through CEIC Asia database.