Bangladesh is heading towards an economic system devoid of moral values, which is causing a breakdown in financial discipline, spoiling the business climate, and discouraging honest taxpayers, said noted economist Wahiduddin Mahmud.

Budget admits we are in a crisis, but offers no direction out of it

It’s not the best of times. It’s not the season of light. The future will tell whether it’s the period of Dickensian despair on the economic front. But this is not the moment for business as usual, for sure.

The economy has been in a rough patch since 2022 like never before in the past decade and a half

The forthcoming FY2024-25 national budget must show that we mean business.

Bangladesh’s economy has grown at a faster pace, albeit marginally, in the current fiscal year than the previous one although the production of industrial goods and agricultural commodities recorded reduced growth.

High inflation, rising pressure on external account to slow down economy, the economist said

Due to lack of coordinated and coherent measures, inflation continues to rise, notwithstanding the abolition of the interest rate cap since July 2023.

Mansur, a former economist at the International Monetary Fund, said interest rates would rise. This may slow the economy further, but it is necessary to overcome the challenges.

Good governance is crucial for overcoming economic challenges

The upcoming budget should adopt a balanced approach to address economic slowdown and inflationary pressure.

However, the findings raised questions among economists, who were puzzled by the growth at a time when the economy had been facing a slowdown due to high inflation, a downtrend in export growth, and falling imports.

However, this will not be easy for a least developed country (LDC) like Bangladesh, he added while addressing the inaugural session of the “First Development Studies International Conference- DSIC 2024”.

Persistent high inflation, high debt burden and slow economic growth are the three challenges facing the economy, noted economist Debapriya Bhattacharya said yesterday.

Persistent inflation, a snowballing debt burden and slow economic growth are the three challenges to Bangladesh, according to Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)

The test of a country’s stability is to what extent it can remain insensitive to any sort of change of government or leadership.

We are hubristically living through our ecological implosion.

The multilateral lender said the economy would grow at 5.6 percent in 2023-24, lower than the South Asian average of 6 percent for 2024. Annual GDP growth averaged 6.6 percent in the decade before the pandemic struck the world in 2020.

The mounting debt servicing obligations also threaten to exacerbate the strain on the country’s low foreign exchange reserves.

Banks situated in countries facing elevated climate risk demonstrate diminished levels of financial stability.