Bangladesh’s $4.5 billion loan programme with the International Monetary Fund is expected to get the final approval on January 30, said the lender’s visiting top official yesterday.

Bangladesh Bank yesterday unveiled a wishy-washy monetary policy for the next six months that will prove to be ineffective in tackling the headwinds passing through the economy.

There would not be any further negotiations on the $4.5 billion loan programme during International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director Antoinette Monsio Sayeh’s forthcoming visit to Bangladesh.

The World Bank yesterday delivered yet another bad news for the economy as the Washington-based multilateral lender pared back Bangladesh’s growth forecast for this fiscal year by 1.5 percent to 5.2 percent.

This year was always supposed to be a celebration of Bangladesh’s economic progress with the opening of Padma bridge and Dhaka metro rail and 100 percent electrification.

Outward remittances from Bangladesh through legal channels crossed the $100-million mark for the first time in 2021 as more foreigners are working in the fast-growing economy, data from a global organisation showed.

One could say the success story of Bangladesh’s economic development has been spectacular.

Bangladesh does not have too many policy options other than reducing consumption of goods and services and making the exchange rate flexible in order to ensure macroeconomic stability, said a central bank report.

Bangladesh's export sector showed its prowess in 2022 despite the devastating Russia-Ukraine war, unprecedented freight costs, energy crisis, record inflation and a risk of a recession that loomed throughout the outgoing year.

The government has trimmed its growth forecast for this fiscal year by a whole percentage point to 6.5 percent as the energy shortage and inflation dampened economic activities.

Though inflation continued to undergo a downward trend for a third consecutive month in November, non-food inflation in rural areas entered into double digits last month for the first time in recent times. 

The government managed to implement 85 per cent of the budget in the last fiscal year despite spending a huge amount as subsidies and incentives, raising questions about the trend of unveiling bigger budgets year after year.  

Bangladesh's foreign currency reserves fell below $34 billion today after the central bank sold $71 million in in the interbank market to help banks clear import bills, said a Bangladesh Bank official.

Many economists today believe we are committing one of the biggest economic blunders, which has brought ruin to countless past societies.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has become the first multilateral lender to respond to Bangladesh’s call for budget support this fiscal year to weather the impacts of the Ukraine war after its board approved $250 million last week.

Even though the amount of our default loans is over Tk 130,000 crore, according to the government accounts, IMF suggests it is almost over Tk 300,000 crore.

Bangladesh may witness slower economic growth in the coming future if it retains the consumption-led growth, which will also exacerbate the widening inequality, said a development economist yesterday.

Dread and anxiety over the possibility of a global recession are rising around the world right now.

Countries in Southeast Asia had until recently taken for granted a stable relationship between China and the US to preserve their own prosperity.

Cottage, micro, small-and-medium enterprises (CMSMEs) in Bangladesh are suffering from significantly lower sales at a time when inflationary pressure has pushed up production costs, according to entrepreneurs.