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| 10 April 2005 | Sunday | 30 Safar 1426 |
BD economy to grow 5.2pc this year: IMF
“Bangladesh’s economic performance remained impressive through the first half of the 2004/2005 fiscal year,” the IMF said.
“A combination of risks arising from the devastating floods, the expiry of the multi-fibre arrangement (of textile) and sustained high world energy and commodity prices, have led (the IMF) it to adjust its projected growth to 5.2 per cent,” it said in a statement released Saturday after its team concluded a two-week visit to Bangladesh.
The projection is in line with that of the Asian Development Bank, which last week said Bangladesh’s economy is expected to grow at 5.3 per cent in the year ending June despite widespread and destructive floods and high oil and commodity prices.
Floods in the low-lying delta nation in July and August inundated over 38 per cent of the land, killing more than 700 people and damaging crops and infrastructure worth 2.2 billion dollars.
The IMF said that due to good export performances and strong growth in remittances, Bangladesh’s international reserve position remained strong at just over three billion dollars in December 2004.
Workers remitted 2.82 billion dollars between July and March of the fiscal year, more than 12.93 per cent higher than the figure for the corresponding period last year.
The country had exported goods and services worth 4.792 billion dollars between July and February, marking growth of around 13 per cent, it added.
The economy grew 5.5 per cent in the previous financial year driven mainly by expansion in the construction, manufacturing and service sectors, as well as recovery in exports, the IMF said.
However, it said Bangladesh needs to curb its credit growth in a bid to contain inflation which is expected to finish the fiscal year at around 6.5 per cent.
“Against the backdrop of rising inflation, and the need to dampen recent very strong domestic credit growth and protect Bangladesh’s reserve position, adjustments to monetary and exchange rate policies are appropriate in the near term”, the fund’s advisor Nissanke Weerasinghe told reporters.
—AFP
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