Bangladesh has been ranked 141st among 161 countries in the 2006 Index of Economic Freedom published by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, a US-based research group. | There are 20 countries worse than Bangla? |
Bangladesh's ranking was the worst among five of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc). Sri Lanka was in a better position and shared the 92nd position with Romania with a score of 3.19, followed by Pakistan with 110th position and 3.33 points, India with 121st position and 3.49 points, and Nepal with 125th position and 3.53 points. Bhutan and the Maldives were not included in the list. All the Saarc member nations were placed in the third category, as they were dubbed 'mostly unfree' economically.
Bangladesh, which managed to reduce its overall score by 0.07 point this year, obtained better score in the monetary policy than in the other areas. A lower score signifies better position.