Country’s economic volatility lowest in S Asia: BB Governor  

Bangladesh has creditably maintained the lowest economic volatility among South Asian nations, with sustaining 6 per cent plus GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth over the past decade, according to a key-note presentation of Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman.

Growth volatility refers to the amount of uncertainty or risk about the size of changes in a country’s annual rate of GDP growth, report BSS.

bbThe governor presented the paper on “Business and Investment Opportunities in the Bangladesh: Economy in Robust Growth Spell” at a seminar organised by Habib Bank AG Zurich at a hotel in the capital on Friday evening. Accumulating the data on some key economic indicators, the governor came up with the observation that the country’s macroeconomic fundamentals in the past decade were strong with downward edging single digit inflation, and moderate fiscal deficit.

In a graph, the governor estimated that growth or economic volatility in Bangladesh was only 0.57 per cent during 1995-2014 compared to 2.61 per cent in Sri Lanka, 2.13 per cent in India and 1.95 per cent in Pakistan. During the period, the average GDP growth in Bangladesh was 5.73 per cent while it was 6.77 per cent in India, 5.59 per cent in Sri Lanka and 4.29 per cent in Pakistan.

Another graph shows that the inflation rate and the volatility in inflation in Bangladesh were also the lowest in South Asia. From 1995-2014, the average inflation was 6.45 per cent in Bangladesh when Sri Lanka suffered the highest 9.45 per cent average annual inflation followed by 8.57 per cent in Pakistan and 7.31 per cent in India.

During the period, Bangladesh experienced the lowest 2.44 per cent volatility in inflation followed by India 2.87 per cent, Pakistan 3.84 per cent and Sri Lanka 4.52 per cent. The graph also projected that the rate of volatility was strongly related with the rate of inflation.

Rahman, in his paper also said that the performance of external sector including export and import, inflow of remittance and foreign direct investment (FDI) and reserve and exchange rate remained robust in the past five years, making the country favourable to trade, business and investment.

He named some sectors as immensely potential for investments. These include textile, ceramic, leather products, infrastructure, shipbuilding, services, IT, tertiary healthcare and ports.

The governor said BB has constantly been promoting the inclusive growth strategy, which already helped generate strong internal demand with creation of jobs for millions of people in diverse sectors.


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