Special Correspondent :
Bangladesh witnessed stronger-than expected import growth in the immediate past fiscal, indicating the economy continues to advance despite growing political tensions over the run up of the next general elections.
In the fiscal year 2017-18, the country’s overall import surged by 25.23 per cent to US$ 54.46 billion (C&F value) compared with 9.0 per cent growth to US$ 47 billion during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal (2016-17), according to Bangladesh Bank, figures .
Import grew by 6.0 per cent to US$ 39.90 billion in the fiscal year 2015-16.
“The country’s overall import rose significantly during the just concluded fiscal year, due to big jump in import orders for food grains, petroleum, industrial raw materials, capital machinery,” Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI) told The New Nation on Friday.
Opening letter of credits (LCs) for importing food grains went up by 114 per cent, capital machinery 22 per cent, petroleum 52.89 per cent and industrial raw materials 11. 84 per cent during the last fiscal year.
“The trend of import order signaled that the economy was expanding in healthy pace despite looming political uncertainty over the upcoming national elections,” Dr Ahsan H Mansur said.
He, however, said that high import growth also raised concern over money-laundering through trade misinvoicing. “The government agencies should investigate whether capital flight has taken place under the cover of soaring imports.”
Some $8.0 billion to $9.0 billion of capital flight takes place from Bangladesh every year and 80 percent of it happens through trade misinvoicing, according to a report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI).
“A high-level import is reinforcing the view that the economy keeps on rolling despite persistent political uncertainty,” Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam, former adviser to the caretaker government told The New Nation yesterday.
But, he said, import figures of some industrial raw materials, goods and commodities did not match with the global price trend and domestic industrial production raising the concern over trade-based capital flight.
He even found no resemblance between the import and export as the country’s outbound shipments nose-dived during the last fiscal when the country’s export posed a 6.43 per cent year on-year growth.
