The interim government of Bangladesh will likely revise the country’s projection of gross domestic product (GDP) growth to 5.25 percent from 6.75 percent for the current fiscal year of 2024-25.
This issue was discussed at a fiscal coordination council meeting chaired by Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed at Bangladesh Secretariat yesterday.
It was the first time that the interim government sat for discussions on GDP growth, inflation and estimating a revised budget for the ongoing fiscal year.
According to officials at the meeting, the government may also revise the inflation target for fiscal 2024-25 to 9 percent from the 6.5 percent targeted in the proposed budget for the year.
In its World Economic Outlook, International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently slashed Bangladesh’s growth projection by 2.1 percentage points to 4.5 percent, the lowest since fiscal 2019-20, when the global coronavirus pandemic hit.
In fiscal year 2019-20, the country recorded a GDP growth of 3.4 percent.
Earlier in June this year, the IMF forecasted Bangladesh’s GDP growth for the current fiscal year to be 6.6 percent.
The IMF outlook did not mention the reasons.
In August, the World Bank slashed its growth forecast for the Bangladesh economy by 1.7 percentage points to 4 percent for fiscal year 2024-25 due to “significant uncertainties following recent political turmoil” and “data unavailability”.
The GDP growth could be as low as 3.2 percent and, if the situation improves, 5.2 percent at best, it said.
This came after Asian Development Bank lowered its growth forecast for Bangladesh to 5.1 percent from 6.6 percent, citing supply chain disruptions caused by political unrest in July and August.