This building, known simply as Three, is being constructed by the elite Bangladeshi real estate developer BTI and is arguably the most expensive residential apartment building ever built in the South Asian nation.

Aside from having the most sought-after zip code, the 12 apartments – each spanning a whole floor of more than 7,000sq-foot (650sq-metre) – are stocked with a range of modern amenities and gadgets, including biometric security systems for locks and elevators and AI-based lighting for efficiency.

All the apartments were sold even before the construction started, even with a whopping base price tag of 200 million taka or $2.5m until 2021 (the taka has since devalued, bringing the price of the apartments down to $1.8m).

Economist MM Akash put it bluntly: “Bangladeshi rich people are increasingly getting wealthy while the poor are struggling for survival.”

The disparity is hard to miss. Less than 3km (about 2 miles) from the Three building, along the same Gulshan Lake, lies Korail, Dhaka’s largest slum. Spanning an area equivalent to 40 football fields, Korail is set in stark contrast to its affluent neighbour, with four to five people crammed into tiny 100sq-foot (9sq-metre) rooms.

In recent years, COVID pandemic-induced lockdowns, the Ukraine-Russia war, and the subsequent economic slowdown have pushed more Bangladeshis into poverty.

Surveys by various organisations have consistently reported a substantial rise in poor and extremely poor individuals. A post-COVID survey by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDA) revealed that approximately 51 percent of Dhaka’s impoverished residents were pushed into extreme poverty due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Akash attributed this widening gap between rich and poor not only to an unequal distribution of economic gains, but also to a development strategy that has disproportionately benefitted the ultrarich.

The country’s Eighth Five-Year Plan acknowledged policy failures contributing to persistent inequality and the lack of equitable wealth distribution.

A prime example, said Akash, is Bangladesh’s tax-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio of 9 percent, well below the average of developing countries of 15 percent.

“We have a regressive direct taxation on the poor and middle class while we allow the rich to practise widespread tax evasion,” he says, adding that a significant portion of the wealthy’s assets remains untaxed.

Khondaker Golam Moazzem, research director at Dhaka-based think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), also criticised successive governments for prioritising corporate interests by reducing taxes instead of taxing the wealthy.

“The irony is, here, workers are facing suppression when demanding fair wages, while at the same time, the ultra-rich are getting better benefits even after tax evasion.”

A Ministry of Finance study suggested that a staggering 45-65 percent of Bangladesh’s income remains untaxed. This is largely due to the superrich’s ability to evade taxes by registering their assets – when they do – at a much lower value than the market price.

Since BTI chairman Faizur Rahman Khan also bought a flat in the building, the company carefully screened the other potential owners from the more than 50 applications it received, predominantly from businessmen in the city.

Bangladesh’s rising disposable income is not unknown. Crowded shopping malls, such as Jamuna Future Park, one of the largest in South Asia, and new billboards advertising everything from packaged foods to cars and smartphones are all evidence of it.

But this BTI building, perhaps more than anything else, speaks of the growing wealth of Bangladesh’s rich, a handful of the country’s 180 million people.

A Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study indicated that, while the nation’s middle-income and affluent consumer (MAC) class is expanding rapidly – predicted to reach 17 percent of the population by 2025, the country’s wealth disparity is simultaneously deepening.

It is a symptom of the nation transitioning from an “economic basket case” – as it was once called by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger – to a fast-growing economy, but one grappling with a growing divide between rich and poor.