The country’s economic growth in the current fiscal may slow down to 5.8 or even to 5.6 percent from above 6 percent for the last four fiscals, predicted Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) on Saturday.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is likely to remain between 5.6 percent and 5.8 percent provided that the second half of the current fiscal does not go through any major political uncertainty, noted CPD executive director Mustafizur Rahman at a programme at its office.
Speaking at the launching of a CPD report, titled ‘Analytical Review on Bangladesh’s Macro-economic Performance in FY2013-14’, Mustafizur Rahman said, “Assuming that there’ll be no major supply-side disruption and political turmoil over the rest of the fiscal 2013-2014, it’s likely that the GDP growth rate will be between 5.6 percent and 5.8 percent.
Some of the strong areas, including export earning and BoP (balance of payment) have maintained the trend, while economic performance of a number of indicators, including ADP implementation, remittance inflow and foreign aid utilization, continued to deteriorate in the first of the fiscal 2013, he observed.
The CPD report showed that the remittance inflow over the first six months of the current fiscal has slowed down by 8.4 percent, and the manpower export slowed down by 13.8 percent.
The ADP expenditure from July to November was only 20 percent of the targeted ADP expenditure for the fiscal, mostly because of low utilization of both the project aids and the government allocations, it added.
The report was prepared under CPD’s Independent Review of Bangladesh’s Development (IRBD) programme, an initiative to have periodic review and analysis of the state of Bangladesh Economy.
Speaking on the occasion, CPD’s distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya said the government needs to come up with steps to remove policy uncertainty to boost the falling investment.
He also voiced concern that the investor can still continue to remain reluctant as the prevailing political uncertainty is likely to continue until and unless an all-inclusive, fair and transparent parliamentary polls is held.
“If the political uncertainty lingers then there will be uncertainty over long-term investment,” he said.
Debapriya observed that the budget deficit is still within the control of the government and will give and opportunity to increase the expenditure.
He also stressed expanding network of the social safety net programmes and its efficient implementation.
Source: UNBConnect