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	News Front Page Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East South Asia UK Business Entertainment Science/Nature Technology Health ------------- Talking Point ------------- Country Profiles In Depth ------------- Programmes ------------- SERVICES Daily E-mail News Ticker Mobile/PDAs ------------- Text Only Feedback Help LANGUAGES EDITIONS Change to UK		Good times for bourgeois Bangladeshis

The park is the first mainstream leisure outlet designed especially to attract middle-class spending power.

Economist Devapriya Bhattacharya says the launching of Fantasy Kingdom and its possible financial viability speaks about the emerging middle-class and its new purchasing power.

"In some ways, it also gives the image of the new Bangladesh.Now you look at the income structure of Bangladesh, the top 10% control about 38%-39% of the total national income.

"If you translate this in real purchasing power parity, we are talking about a $70bn market consisting of 13 million people.

"It's a huge market in comparison to many European countries for that matter," he says.

Shopping complexes

Nowhere is the financial muscle of the Bangladeshi middle class more clearly seen than in the various new supermarkets that have sprung up all over Dhaka and other cities.

The manager of the biggest new supermarket in Dhaka, TD Pakiya, concedes that products in his store are way beyond the budget of most of the country's 130 million population.

The vast majority of us can only dream about the products we see in these shops

Hanif, rickshaw-puller

"We see a majority of the middle and upper class because still there's a segment where people are a bit sceptical about the pricing and the ambience we have created here," he says.

"They little realise that you can have the same prices as outside market prices. People are just using the same budget which they bought items from the open bazaar, you call it open market, in Bangladesh."

"With the same budget I think they buy more here, I suppose because with the quality they get less wastage, the right weight.

"It's not a matter of having more money, but you can still manage with the same budget," he says.

"It'll take a while to persuade people to come in here, but it's more comfortable."

Beyond reach

On the streets of Dhaka, many seem unconvinced about the new shopping lifestyle.

Hanif is one of Dhaka's 400,000 rickshaw-pullers, earning about $3 a day.

"It's obvious that many of these shops are not affordable for us. Anybody who goes in them must be a very rich person.

"The vast majority of us can only dream about the products we see in these shops," he says.

But evidence of middle-class spending power can now be seen all over Dhaka, a city which many foreign visitors have likened to one vast building site.

Changing times

Everywhere, huge skyscrapers are being built for office, retail and housing purposes.

Mohammed Hussein supervises over 1,500 workmen on a site on the outskirts of Dhaka.

While Dhaka undergoes a facelift, individual lifestyles are also changing profoundly.

Some middle-class young people even have Thai disco dancing instructors.

Demand for Western-style music, clothes and food is at an all-time high.

Five years ago it would have been impossible to find an Italian restaurant outside Dhaka.

But diners can have a pizza for lunch on the hour's drive from the city to Fantasy Kingdom.

It is not clear when or even whether ordinary people will see any benefits for themselves.

But Bangladesh today is shedding its stereotyped image of the land of floods and poverty.

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