Dr. Atiur Rahman :
Governor, Bangladesh Bank
The UNDESA has been supporting Bangladesh Bank in strengthening capacity of its young officials on monetary and financial policies through various advanced training programs. The 2-day long Workshop has been designed to shed lights on three broad heads: Economic Growth, Macroeconomic Stability, and Private Sector Development. I am sure, distinguished discussants will cover these issues in detail. However, let me take this opportunity to highlight briefly the macroeconomic context of Bangladesh.
Unlike the recent trend of post GFC growth slowdown in the Emerging Markets, Bangladesh is on a sustained, steady trend of 6 plus percent average annual GDP growth rate for more than half a decade. We are even targeting 7 percent growth for the current fiscal year. Inclusive, balanced economic growth along with rapid poverty alleviation has been the most important feature of our development journey. The domestic economy remained buoyant amid repeated episodes of natural calamities and external shocks, providing the markets and entrepreneurs a predictable policy environment with low uncertainty, while making Bangladesh the next hotspot for investment to the global mega lenders.
Bangladesh’s development strategy is underpinned by a broad social consensus of inclusive, equitable and environmentally sustainable socioeconomic growth, ‘leaving no one behind’. Real GDP growth of Bangladesh is presently twice the rate of global output growth. The 7th Five Year Plan (FY2016-FY2020) aspires to accelerate this growth further to 8 percent by the year 2020, which will be inclusive, pro-poor, and environmentally sustainable. The private sector will take the lead role in bringing the additional growth. Further, geographical advantage and demographic dividend of large pool of low cost labor position Bangladesh as an attractive destination for foreign investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, education, and technology.
Bangladesh Bank, the monetary authority of Bangladesh, has been contributing to this development journey through promoting a socially responsible inclusive green financing strategy alongside massive digitization in the country’s the financial sector. In recent years, Bangladesh Bank has brought about deeper engagement of the financial sector in the developmental role with a social responsibility driven financial inclusion drive.
Bangladesh Bank has taken up comprehensive reform and up-gradation of the county’s financial market infrastructure, including setting up of fully automated nationwide online clearing and settlement system, Bangladesh Real
Time Gross Settlement (BD-RTGS); customer interest protection centers, launching of mobile financial services (more than 29 million accounts); no frill accounts for the disadvantaged and students (more than 16 million accounts), mandatory credit for agriculture, MSMEs, renewable energy, and so forth. The financial inclusion drive is supported by advanced technology, which has drastically reduced costs, increased the reach, and allowed new players to leapfrog constraints.
The inclusive growth strategy of the present government and Bangladesh Bank’s sustained motivation and innovative policy initiatives in promoting environmentally sustainable green financing are paying off well.
Over the last decade, Bangladesh economy had the least volatile GDP growth and inflation in South Asia. Stable downward edging CPI inflation; low, single digit fiscal deficit; stable exchange rate; positive export and import growth amid demand weakness in external markets; buoyant foreign exchange reserves and remittance inflows are the defining features of our economy. Socioeconomic performances are quite exemplary as well; Bangladesh has achieved most of the MDGs well ahead of time, with rapid fall in poverty from 48.9 percent in 2000 to 24.5 percent in 2015.
The performance of the Bangladesh economy is grounded on very inclusive and broad-based nature of growth, which has already gained global attention.
The goal is now to deepen, widen, and further improve the quality of inclusive financing programs to ensure environmentally sustainable economic development. All the government organs with the lead role of the private sector need to work hard to pace up the inclusive socioeconomic growth and development momentum. We also need to put more attention towards long term mobilization of savings, and quick completion of the infrastructure projects.
Governor, Bangladesh Bank
The UNDESA has been supporting Bangladesh Bank in strengthening capacity of its young officials on monetary and financial policies through various advanced training programs. The 2-day long Workshop has been designed to shed lights on three broad heads: Economic Growth, Macroeconomic Stability, and Private Sector Development. I am sure, distinguished discussants will cover these issues in detail. However, let me take this opportunity to highlight briefly the macroeconomic context of Bangladesh.
Unlike the recent trend of post GFC growth slowdown in the Emerging Markets, Bangladesh is on a sustained, steady trend of 6 plus percent average annual GDP growth rate for more than half a decade. We are even targeting 7 percent growth for the current fiscal year. Inclusive, balanced economic growth along with rapid poverty alleviation has been the most important feature of our development journey. The domestic economy remained buoyant amid repeated episodes of natural calamities and external shocks, providing the markets and entrepreneurs a predictable policy environment with low uncertainty, while making Bangladesh the next hotspot for investment to the global mega lenders.
Bangladesh’s development strategy is underpinned by a broad social consensus of inclusive, equitable and environmentally sustainable socioeconomic growth, ‘leaving no one behind’. Real GDP growth of Bangladesh is presently twice the rate of global output growth. The 7th Five Year Plan (FY2016-FY2020) aspires to accelerate this growth further to 8 percent by the year 2020, which will be inclusive, pro-poor, and environmentally sustainable. The private sector will take the lead role in bringing the additional growth. Further, geographical advantage and demographic dividend of large pool of low cost labor position Bangladesh as an attractive destination for foreign investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, education, and technology.
Bangladesh Bank, the monetary authority of Bangladesh, has been contributing to this development journey through promoting a socially responsible inclusive green financing strategy alongside massive digitization in the country’s the financial sector. In recent years, Bangladesh Bank has brought about deeper engagement of the financial sector in the developmental role with a social responsibility driven financial inclusion drive.
Bangladesh Bank has taken up comprehensive reform and up-gradation of the county’s financial market infrastructure, including setting up of fully automated nationwide online clearing and settlement system, Bangladesh Real
Time Gross Settlement (BD-RTGS); customer interest protection centers, launching of mobile financial services (more than 29 million accounts); no frill accounts for the disadvantaged and students (more than 16 million accounts), mandatory credit for agriculture, MSMEs, renewable energy, and so forth. The financial inclusion drive is supported by advanced technology, which has drastically reduced costs, increased the reach, and allowed new players to leapfrog constraints.
The inclusive growth strategy of the present government and Bangladesh Bank’s sustained motivation and innovative policy initiatives in promoting environmentally sustainable green financing are paying off well.
Over the last decade, Bangladesh economy had the least volatile GDP growth and inflation in South Asia. Stable downward edging CPI inflation; low, single digit fiscal deficit; stable exchange rate; positive export and import growth amid demand weakness in external markets; buoyant foreign exchange reserves and remittance inflows are the defining features of our economy. Socioeconomic performances are quite exemplary as well; Bangladesh has achieved most of the MDGs well ahead of time, with rapid fall in poverty from 48.9 percent in 2000 to 24.5 percent in 2015.
The performance of the Bangladesh economy is grounded on very inclusive and broad-based nature of growth, which has already gained global attention.
The goal is now to deepen, widen, and further improve the quality of inclusive financing programs to ensure environmentally sustainable economic development. All the government organs with the lead role of the private sector need to work hard to pace up the inclusive socioeconomic growth and development momentum. We also need to put more attention towards long term mobilization of savings, and quick completion of the infrastructure projects.
