An economic slowdown now compared to previous months has prompted the IMF to revise down its growth forecast for Bangladesh in the current fiscal year. "The reason for revising down our growth forecast is response to what we saw in the recent past," said Krishna Srinivasan, IMF Director for Asia-Pacific Department. Replying to a query from the FE, he said: "…things have slowed down compared to what we saw in the April forecast. So those developments give us a pause in terms of what happens to growth." Mr Srinivasan was briefing newsmen Thursday at a press conference on Economic Outlook for the Asia-Pacific Region in Washington, DC, as part of the ongoing World Bank-IMF annual meetings. He mentions there was a mission led by mission chief for Bangladesh Chris Papageorgiou which looked at all aspects, what happening to the economy. "Based on that we (have) revised down the growth forecast." Mr Srinivasan points out that in the case of Bangladesh, the growth has slowed and inflation remains high.

মুদিপণ্য থেকে শুরু করে ব্যক্তিগত পরিচর্যার পণ্য, বাংলাদেশে বিভিন্ন পণ্যের চাহিদায় এভাবেই পতন দেখা যাচ্ছে। খুচরা পণ্য বিপণন শিল্পের বিশেষজ্ঞরা বলছেন, নতুন এই মন্দার ফলে সাময়িক পুনরুদ্ধারের লক্ষণও ম্লান হয়ে যাচ্ছে।বিশেষত গত জুলাই থেকে চাহিদার খাড়া পতনের বিষয়টি উল্লেখ করেছে রিটেইলার বা খুচরা বিক্রেতারা। তারা বলছে, মূল্যস্ফীতির চাপে পিষ্ট হয়ে কমছে গৃহস্থালি ব্যয়, যার কারণে অনেক পরিবারই টুকিটাকি অন্যান্য জিনিস কেনার চেয়ে অপরিহার্য পণ্য কেনাতেই অগ্রাধিকার দিচ্ছে।গরু বা খাসির গোশতের চেয়ে কম দামের প্রোটিনের উৎস মুরগি ও মাছের মতো খাবারের বিক্রিবাট্টাও অক্টোবরে আগের মাসের চেয়ে অন্তত এক-তৃতীয়াংশ কমে গেছে।

Bangladesh has been experiencing a decline in foreign loan inflows while grappling with skyrocketing interest payments, which have nearly tripled in the last three years. Principal repayments have gone up as well, albeit modestly by 32% during the same timeframe.

The settlements of import letter of credit (LC) in September increased by 24% compared to the same period last year, driven by overdue payments, despite a decline in the first two months of the current fiscal year due to political unrest.According to central bank data, payments for import LCs in September reached $5.87 billion, which is around $1.15 billion higher than the same period last fiscal year, when $4.72 billion in LCs were settled.

Pubali Bank, a private sector lender, reported an impressive 43% growth in its consolidated profit, reaching Tk877 crore in the first nine months of 2024. This growth was largely driven by a significant rise in investment income, commissions, exchange, and brokerage, as well as an increase in interest income, according to a disclosure published on the stock exchange's website yesterday (24 October).

Backed by the public exchequer to operate, the performance of different state-owned entities (SOEs) has often been an issue of concern for the successive governments in different times and contexts. Any lapse by these SOEs to perform duly ultimately adds to the financial and fiscal burdens of the central government. According to reports, this has again proved to be the case with some SOEs including autonomous, semi-autonomous, local governed bodies and corporations as the repayments against the debts they owe to the government, are deposited with their immediate controlling authority and not directly with the public exchequer through automated challan. That is exactly when the procrastinating bureaucracy halts the progress of work leading to avoidable delay and account mismatch. The debt service liability (DSL) of the SOEs in question has been accumulating and is learnt to have inflated unmanageably out of proportion. Failure to repay the debts including interests and principals against the loans obtained by some 142 SOEs as per schedule resulted in an astronomical amount of DSL at Tk 1.83 trillion by June 2023 and by June 2024 that amount further increased to Tk 2.18 trillion!

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An economic slowdown now compared to previous months has prompted the IMF to revise down its growth forecast for Bangladesh in the current fiscal year. "The reason for revising down our growth forecast is response to what we saw in the recent past," said Krishna Srinivasan, IMF Director for Asia-Pacific Department.

The country went through a tremendous upheaval during the July-August period and as a consequence, the economy suffered immensely. . There have been practically daily protests in and around the industrial belts and law-and-order situation is yet to get back to normal. On top of these uncertainties the country is facing a major energy crunch. A large percentage of the energy mix has become import-dependent and there is now a move by the policymakers to wean the country off expensive imported fossil fuels. Since domestic supplies of gas have been steadily declining, there is a mismatch between demand and supply of energy. With cutbacks in production comes a reduction in internal revenue generation for the national board of revenue (NBR).

The World Bank announced on Thursday a new gender strategy aimed at boosting economic opportunities for women and enabling their participation in the global economy through social protection and access to broadband and capital. The Gender Strategy 2024-2030, unveiled during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington, has set goals by 2030 that aim to enable 300 million more women to use broadband internet, unlocking essential services, financial services, education and job opportunities.

গোটা দক্ষিণ এশিয়ায় মূল্যস্ফীতি এখন সবচেয়ে বেশি নিয়ন্ত্রণে শ্রীলংকায়। সেপ্টেম্বরে দেশটিতে মূল্যস্ফীতির হার ছিল মাইনাস বা ঋণাত্মক দশমিক ৫ শতাংশ। সে অনুযায়ী সেপ্টেম্বরে দেশটিতে মূল্যস্ফীতি নয়, মূল্য সংকোচন হয়েছে। অর্থাৎ নিত্যপ্রয়োজনীয় দ্রব্যের দাম কমেছে।

বিশ্বব্যাপী মূল্যস্ফীতি নিয়ন্ত্রণে নীতি সুদহার বৃদ্ধি মৌলিক পদক্ষেপ হিসেবে বিবেচিত হয়ে আসছে। বাংলাদেশ ব্যাংকও সে পথেই হাঁটছে। বাজারে অর্থ সরবরাহের লাগাম টেনে ধরে মূল্যস্ফীতি নিয়ন্ত্রণের চেষ্টায় দফায় দফায় বাড়াচ্ছে নীতি সুদহার। ২০২২ সালের মে মাসে নীতি সুদহার ছিল ৫ শতাংশ। সে সময় থেকে এখন পর্যন্ত মোট ১১ বার বাড়ানো হয়েছে নীতি সুদহার। চলতি বছরে চার দফা এ সুদহার বাড়ানোর পর সম্প্রতি আবারো ৫০ বেসিস পয়েন্ট বাড়িয়ে তা ১০ শতাংশে উন্নীত করা হয়েছে।