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Although not in line with Dhaka’s estimates, the World Bank estimates that Bangladesh will fare better than other South Asian countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the last fiscal year. The report on the latest economic developments in South Asia, released before the start of the Virtual Annual Meeting in the context of COVID-19, was released from the World Bank headquarters in Washington on Thursday.
According to estimates, GDP growth in all countries will decline, but in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan it will increase. However, in the current financial year, according to their forecast, all these countries will not only make U-turns, but will start running faster, while Bangladesh will be a little behind.
The World Bank has said that Bangladesh’s GDP growth will be two percent in the last fiscal year 2019-20. However, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, published in August last year, growth in that fiscal year was 5.2 percent.
Although there is a difference at the beginning of the fiscal year, India’s growth will not increase in fiscal 20. On the contrary, it will decrease by 9.6 percent (India’s fiscal year starts in April), while that of Pakistan will decrease by 1.5 percent. Likewise, growth will decline to 19.5% in the Maldives, 6.8% in Sri Lanka and 5.5% in Afghanistan. However, Bhutan will increase by 1.5 percent and Nepal by 0.2 percent. The World Bank analysis says that the sudden collapse of Covid-19 has all its effects.
Based on the expectation that Bangladesh will grow by 1.8 percent in the current fiscal year 2020-21 based on the expectation that it will return to normal from this extremely negative state. However, Dhaka has set a growth target of 7.2 percent for the current fiscal year, given last June.
Last week, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told The Daily Star: “Export remittances are increasing. The economy has returned to normal.
“Hopefully we can achieve the goal,” he added.
On the other hand, this year, India’s growth will increase by 5.4 percent and that of Pakistan by 0.5 percent. Similarly, the growth of the Maldives will increase by 9.5%, Sri Lanka by 3.3% and Afghanistan by 2.5%.
Bhutan will increase by 1.6 percent and Nepal by 0.6 percent. Those whose growth figures are higher are actually due to a fall in GDP in comparative terms.
Note that GDP growth has varied due to the financial time of year.
