The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said that Bangladesh’s GDP would grow by 6 per cent this fiscal year, lowering its earlier projection of 6.1 per cent.
The IMF projection, however, is slightly higher than the World Bank and Asian Development which estimated that the country’s GDP would grow by 5.8 per cent and 5.7 per cent respectively.
The IMF in its World Economic Outlook 2013, which was released on Tuesday, showed that the country’s GDP would be 6 per cent in FY 2013 against 7.1 per cent average growth in the developing Asia.
The IMF in its earlier WEO released in October, 2012 projected that the country’s GDP would be 6.1 per cent against the government’s target of 7.2 per cent growth in the current fiscal year.
The international lender, however, did not specify why the growth projection was lowered for Bangladesh in the WEP although the IMF in a statement on April 2 said that the political unrest in recent months was affecting the country’s economic activities.
The IMF’s statement said despite global uncertainty the country’s economic development was very visible as the exports were picking up, remittances remained strong, reserves continued to rise, and inflation pressures eased because of restrained fiscal and monetary policies.
‘However, unrest in recent months is affecting economic activity, with real GDP growth now expected to go moderate to below 6 per cent in the fiscal year (FY) 2013 (July 2012-June 2013),’ said the statement jointly issued by outgoing mission chief for Bangladesh David Cowen and Rodrigo Cubero, the incoming mission chief.
Officials of the World Bank, which lowered the projection of Bangladesh GDP growth to 5.8 per cent, on Saturday said weak exports and investments due to the euro-area crisis, domestic supply constraints and intensified unrest in the country were likely to have contributed to the slower growth.
An immediate hindrance to growth is the political complexity and frequent widespread violence of late in Bangladesh, they said.
The IMF’s WEO, however, projected that the country’s GDP would go up to 6.4 per cent in the next fiscal year of 2014.
The latest WEO lowered the projection of rate of inflation to 6.5 per cent for the current year from 8.5 per cent projected in the earlier WEO.
The IMF report projected that Bangladesh’s current account balance would be negative in the current fiscal year, for the first time in eight years.
Although it earlier projected that the country’s current account balance would be negative 0.3 per cent of the GDP in the year, the latest projection said that the balance would be a positive 0.3 per cent.
newagebd
-With New Age input
