At the end of the fiscal year, GDP growth will be 8.13 percent, said Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. A similar growth rate was also forecast by ADB though the World Bank says that the growth will be 7.3 percent.
Specialists say that this will be due to investment in private sector, increase of export and remittance.
They also underlined that to sustain GDP, banking laws should be implemented stringently, corporate rule has to be established and government has to take the right decisions.
The minister said, “We have praiseworthy growth in all economic sectors which has had positive impact on GDP.”
In the last fiscal year, growth in industry sector was 17.13 which is 17.61 percent this year. In production, it was 18.23 percent in 2017 which is 19.28 percent this year.
While growth in Bangladesh is outstanding, efforts need to be taken to reduce income disparity, strengthen industrial development base and increase government investment in infrastructure.
Specialists feel that to sustain GDP, export diversity is needed and trade environment has to be ensured along with emphasis attached to human resources development plus reforms of the banking sector.
Researcher for Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Khondokar Golam Moazzem told Bangla Tribune, “It’s remarkable to attain 7 percent GDP by steadily maintaining 6 percent, and entrepreneurs played a major part in this attainment.”
However, he said that the disparity between small and big entrepreneurs has to be reduced.
While average income has risen, real income has not seen any positive impact; consequently, income disparity has created an impediment to the attainment of high growth.
World Bank’s chief economist Dr. Zahid Hossain, said, “We feel that growth will be at least 7 percent but reforms need to be carried out in banking and revenue sectors.”
Default loan is rising due to loan re-scheduling, he added.
Regarding the high growth of Bangladesh, ADB says, “Bangladesh is among the countries which has had fast economic growth and due to increase in investment, rise of export income and uninterrupted flow of remittance growth rate has been encouraging.”
However, ADB points out that default loan is high and profit is low compared to investment which is creating deficit of capital.
It also highlights weaknesses in the banking sector though recent reforms have made a difference.
ADB has suggested strict enforcement of existing banking laws, establishment of corporate good governance, assessment of decisions to disburse loans and unification of government banks.