Special Correspondent :
Bangladesh economy is facing triple threat of growing unemployment, banking crisis and bad governance, economists said.
They said the economy has been growing consistently over 6.0 percent in the last one decade, but the past economic performance may not be sustained in the long run if the challenges are not addressed properly.
“The short-term economic outlook remains steady and favourable. But the rising unemployment, banking crisis and bad governance has already posed a serious threat on Bangladesh’s long-term economic prosperity,” economist Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam told The New Nation yesterday.
He said the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) of Bangladesh is expected to remain above 7.1 percent in 2018 and 7.2 percent in 2019
“Rising unemployment would have severe impact on nation’s productivity, banking crisis to act as failing investment and bad government to undermine reforms, and their outcome would negatively affect the GDP growth,” said Mirza Azizul Islam.
He also said that thousands of people in our country are without job, which has become a great concern. The prevalent dilemma of employability has created social and economic imbalances. The problem should be addressed at any cost to ensure sustainable economic growth.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ (BBS) latest labour force survey, around 4.82 crore of the 10.91 crore-strong labour force of Bangladesh were unemployed.
“Investment remains particularly low (30 per cent of the GDP) to support the job creation. We need to raise the investment up to 40 percent to sustain job growth and absorb new entrance who are coming in the job market every year,” he noted.
Mirza Azizul Islam also said that the current banking crisis has made the financial sector vulnerable and it is also lowering the investment.
“The economy is facing triple threat, and this is expected to have a domino effect on growth,” economist Dr Ahsan M Monsur told The New Nation.
He said the government expected the economic growth at 7.2 per cent this fiscal. But the prevailing economic situation could bring down the growth as expected by the government.
“The current banking crisis has posed a serious threat to the economy when many commercial banks plunged into liquidity crisis. This has made borrowing difficult for the private sector affecting the business and investment,” said Dr Ahsan M Monsur.
He said the country’s banking sector is now under deep crisis owing to bad governance and swelling non-performing loans. Rising bad debts have already sent many banks near to collapse.
“Not only banks, governance problem also remains in most public institutions. They are failing to deliver expected services to the entrepreneurs and investors and consequently hindering economic growth,” said Dr Ahsan M Mansur.
He also said that rising unemployment is taking its toll on Bangladesh economy and making the current pattern of development unsustainable.
“We’re maintaining over six per cent GDP growth right now. But which is not reflecting on the large population of the country due to improper distribution of wealth and income. Income inequality is widening among the rich and poor segment of the people in the society undermining the growth sustainability. No economic gain will be sustained if the disparity is not come down to a tolerable level.”
When asked, Dr Ahsan Mansur said many mega projects are rolling to show the government’s effort to accelerate the growth. But, we’re missing out the economic gain from the projects because of their time and cost overruns.
