Al Amin :
The national economy may face challenges in various fronts in 2022 owing to widening trade deficit, currency depreciation, rising inflation, poverty, inequality and unemployment and weakness in financial sector, economists said.
They said, the country’s economy is at recovery stage from the Covid-19 shock as most of the indicators have been rebounded vibrantly in the last six months and to keep it up, the challenges need to be addressed properly.
The country is going to sustain a half-a-trillion-dollar economy next fiscal year buoyed by a successful vaccination campaign and a steady growth in agriculture and industry.
Achieving the target, the challenges including transport management to make supply chain smooth by tackling ongoing pandemic, removal of weaknesses in financial sector and implementation of business-friendly polices need to be addressed to sustain the economic recovery, they said.
Besides, confidence among the investors by controlling inflation and instability in currency rates and reduction of balance of payment by containing import growth are also the challenges for the economy, they added. Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economists of the World Bank Dhaka office, told The New Nation on Saturday, “Financial sector had taken some special measures including extension of loans repayment tenure to revive the industry sector during the pandemic. These have put an unusual pressure on the financial sector.”
“Now the time is to come out from these to sustain economic recovery and to bring corporate governance in the sector,” he said.
The overall production of medium and large industries witnessed a 19 per cent growth in the last six months of the 2021. The growth rate was 4.38 per cent in the previous year.
Among others, the leather industry saw a giant 125.24 per cent growth while the textile 29 per cent and other non-metallic minerals 30.72 per cent during this time.
Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh (PRI), said “Overall indicators are good, although there is an uncertainty due to the new variant of the Covid-19.”
“However, trade deficit with other countries is widening gradually. It should be reduced by containing import growth,” he said.
“Besides, the challenges like poverty, inequality and unemployment need to be handled properly in the coming days,” Mansur said.
As per the finance division’s projection, the size of the country’s economy would be $510 billion in fiscal 2022-23 with 10.7 per cent growth.
The GDP is estimated to be $455 billion at the current price in this fiscal year, up from $411 billion.
The overall growth will reach 12.08 per cent, according to the forecast, which was presented at the Fiscal Coordination Council meeting presided over by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal recently.
Abul Kasem Khan, Chairperson of the trustee board of Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD), said, “The country’s economy is already at recovery stage, despite uncertainty. If the challenges are addressed properly, the economy will be rebounded strongly in the new year.”
Mohammad Hatem, Executive Director of the BKMEA, said, “We need business-friendly environment, proper implementation of trade policies and removal of complexities in customs related rules to make export-import smooth.”
