Bangladesh Development Update, April 2019 : Towards Regulatory Predictability
Bangladesh has maintained its robust growth performance. Exports and remittances have been buoyant. Agriculture had bumper harvests. Overall inflation has slowed as decelerating food inflation offset a pickup in non-food inflation. Monetary expansi...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Dhaka
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/269241554408636618/Bangladesh-Development-Update-Towards-Regulatory-Predictability http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31504 |
| Summary: | Bangladesh has maintained its robust
growth performance. Exports and remittances have been
buoyant. Agriculture had bumper harvests. Overall inflation
has slowed as decelerating food inflation offset a pickup in
non-food inflation. Monetary expansion has been short of
target as private sector credit growth slowed and the
Bangladesh Bank siphoned off banking liquidity by selling
dollars to defend the taka. Vulnerabilities in the banking
system and capital market persisted. Higher export and lower
import growth reduced the current account deficit, but a
decline in the financial account surplus diluted the impact
of the current account deficit decline on the overall
balance of payments deficit. The budget deficit increased in
FY18 but remained below the 5 percent of GDP target. Low
revenue collection continues to be a major challenge as
policy and administrative reforms have stalled and, in some
instances, reversed. Key structural reform challenges are to
mitigate the financial sector vulnerabilities, strengthen
revenue mobilization, manage public investments better, meet
the infrastructure gap, enhance human capital and streamline
business regulation. Addressing these reform challenges will
be critical for reinforcing future productivity growth. This
report provides an assessment of the state of the Bangladesh
economy, outlook, risks, and the key reform challenges the
economy is currently facing. The coverage includes
developments in the real sector focusing on growth and its
components; inflation; monetary and financial sector
developments; external sector developments focusing on the
balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves and the
exchange rate; and fiscal developments focusing on revenue
mobilization, public expenditures, and deficit financing.
The special focus in this update is on regulatory
predictability based on an analysis of firm level survey data. |
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