BSS-03 ECONOMY-2018-TWO-LAST DHAKA

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ZCZC

BSS-03

ECONOMY-2018-TWO-LAST DHAKA

Former Director General of BIDS, Mustafa K Mujeri said Bangladesh is poised to attain targeted 7.4 percent growth in end of the current 2017-18 financial year in continuation of its excellent performance of achieving 7.28 percent growth in fiscal year.

“Attaining 7.4 percent growth is quite achievable at the end of current fiscal year (FY18). If the Agriculture sector, especially the next Boro output fared better, then there will be a definite positive impact,” he said.

Dr Mujeri noted that the most important thing was that growth had become stable amid various challenges.

“This shows the resilience of the economy and the economy of Bangladesh has now gained the power of moving forward in the right path despite external shocks,” the economist said.

About the implementation of the mega projects, he said implementation of the lone Padma Bridge project would boost the country’s GDP growth by 1.2 percent.

If the other mega projects are implemented in line with the pace of the Padma Bridge project, then it would be possible to boost the GDP growth to 8 to 10 percent in the next three years, he said.

Dr Mujeri said that the year 2017 was a year of a lot of happenings in the economic context as there were a good number of achievements in the macroeconomic front.

He said the positive sides were that all the major economic indicators were aligned with the fiscal and monetary policies.

Citing that the next year will be the election year, Mujeri said if the national election is held in a free, fair and credible manner and there is no political instability, then the economic growth would not be hampered.

Besides, if the agricultural production is not hampered and if there is no instability in agricultural outputs, then the inflation rate would remain within the fiscal target.

Referring to some weaknesses and instability to some extent in the financial sector, especially in the banking sector, Mujeri, also the executive director of the Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development (InM), said default loan incidents and loan scams in banks like Farmers Bank, do not give good signal to the economy and such issues should have to be strictly addressed.

The eminent economic analyst said such things hamper development efforts in the long term saying:”We’ll have to remain cautious so that the financial sector does not put any barrier to the growth of the real sector,”

He underscored the need for sending skilled workers abroad to boost the inflow of remittances, diversifying the exportable items and exploring newer export market, further flourishing the SMEs, ensuring more balanced development, further enhancing the implementation capacity of development projects, especially the foreign-aided projects, giving more focus on attaining the SDGs, boosting south-south cooperation alongside tapping the traditional sources of foreign aid.

BSS/SPL/GM/ANC/MMA/1121hrs