Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has questioned this fiscal’s growth estimate of 8.13 percent citing inconsistencies with various economic indicators.
The Dhaka-based think-tank shared its analysis of “The First 100 Days of the New Government” and “Tracking Electoral Pledges and Implications for the National Budget for Fiscal Year 2019-20,” at a press briefing on Tuesday (Apr 23).
CPD has said the past 100 days of incumbent government lack effort, enthusiasm, and initiative.
“In terms of our observation, the first hundred days of the new government remain as usual – a lack of effort, enthusiasm, and initiatives. We expected more than that,” English daily the Dhaka Tribune quoted CPD distinguished fellow Debapriya Bhattacharya.
In its analysis, CPD said that the projected GDP growth in FY19 is largely driven by the growth of the manufacturing sector, followed by the service sector.
The report said that the provisional estimate is considered using varying levels of availability of required data. It is also known that while estimating GDP in Bangladesh, for a large part of the total value added, real time annual data in not considered.
Such inconsistent evidence between GDP estimates and proxy indicators suggests that there is a need to test the robustness of growth estimates so as to have credible policy guidance, the report added.
CPD said the objective of their report is to review the present economic growth trajectory of Bangladesh to: understand its sources, reliability, and sustainability; to assess to what extent policy measures taken over the first hundred days of the government likely to be “front-loaded” or “back loaded”; to appraise consistency between electoral pledges and post-election policy measures; and to allocate priorities can be improved qualitatively and quantitatively in view of the forthcoming national budget.
“We have to ensure that the discussion of complete development remains in the discussion of growth, as well as the indicators, and data, to measure estimated growth; this also needs to be accessible to the public,” said Bhattacharya.
Towfiqul Islam Khan, senior research fellow of CPD emphasized the importance of: economic growth, public financing, and private investment, banking sector, as well as the external sector.
The report said through 2010-2017, Bangladesh’s economic growth has been relatively less employment-generating, while economic growth has been mostly driven by productivity of labour; the benefits of growth are likely to be mostly reaped by the capital owners within the economy.