The Bangladeshi economy has achieved the fastest growth among the 45 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, says the Asian Development Bank.
It said that the economy grew by 7.9 percent the outgoing 2018-19 fiscal, the fastest expansion since 1974.
Describing it as a new record, the Manila-based lender said it predicts 8 percent growth FY2019 and FY2020.
“Bangladesh will continue to be the fastest in the Asia-Pacific,” it said in its Asian Development Outlook.
On Wednesday (Jun 19), ADB Country Director for its Bangladesh resident mission Manmohan Parkash handed over a copy of its report to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at her office in the parliament, reports BSS.
Briefing the media after the meeting, Press Secretary to the PM Ihsanul Karim said that Hasina told the ADB official that her administration was gradually advancing the economy in planned way.
“We have done our analysis before formulating the budget this year also,” he quoted the prime minister saying during the meeting.
Appreciating the economic plans adopted by the government, ADB Country Director Parkash told the prime minister all the development programmes were people-centric, according to Press Secretary Karim.
The Asian Development Outlook, the annual publication of the ADB, evaluates and forecasts economic performance of the Asia-Pacific countries.
It said the growth will be moderate across most of developing Asia — 5.7 percent in 2019 and 5.6 percent in 2020 from 6.2 percent in 2017 and 5.9 percent in 2018.
South Asia will see buck trend of slowing growth in Asia — 6.8 percent in 2019 and 6.9 percent in 2020, according to the multi-lateral lender.
The key attributors of this growth are strong leadership, good governance, stable government and continued political calm, sound macroeconomic policy and right development priorities, says the report.
The drivers of the growth have been identified as higher public investment, stronger consumption demand, revival in exports, improved power supply and higher growth in private sector credit.
It pointed out that Bangladesh has favourable trade prospects despite a weaker global growth while exports and remittances are likely to increase further.
The report also mentions that strong public investment due to continued policy environment and expeditious implementation of large infrastructure projects and higher tax collection with expanded tax base will move Bangladesh economy further.
It said Bangladesh’s banking system reforms will attract higher private investment which will support the growth.