Shawdesh Desk:

The country’s gross domestic product grew by 5.82 per cent in the outgoing financial year, despite slower growth in the agriculture and industrial sectors.

Higher growth in the service sector at 5.8 per cent over 5.3 per cent in FY23 pushed overall growth slightly higher than 5.78 per cent in FY23, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

The per capita income has been projected at Tk 3, 06,144 in FY24 from Tk 2, 73,360 in FY23 amid a decade of high inflation, increasing the suffering of low, fixed, and middle-income groups.

In terms of US dollars, the per capita income has been projected at $2,784 in FY24 from $2,749 in FY23, with the BBS calculating the exchange rate of taka against the dollar at 109.97.

Neighbouring India had a per capita income of $2,450 in FY23, which ran from April to March.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Nepal had per capita incomes of $1560, $3610, $10,880, and $1340 in 2022, as per Macrotrends, an international research firm.

Economists doubted the growth projection against the backdrop of negative indicators in almost every part of the economy.

Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur said that a growth rate of 4 per cent was quite good amid the prolonged downturn in economic activities throughout the outgoing FY24.

‘There is no positive indicator that can bring so much growth,’ he said.

The BBS›s latest projection is far less than the initial projection of 7.5 per cent made in the budget speech for FY24.

It is also lower than the revised projection of 6.54 per cent made in a meeting of the coordination council on budget, macro-economy, and resource management under the ministry of finance in December.

The BBS latest projection is close to projections made by the World Bank at 5.6 per cent and the International Monetary Fund at 5.7 per cent.

The provisional estimate released by BBS on Monday showed that agriculture sector growth was recorded at 3.3 per cent, compared to 3.2 per cent in FY23.

The industry sector, which accounted for more than one-third of the country’s GDP, grew at a rate of 6.6 per cent in the outgoing FY24, compared to 8.37 per cent in FY23.

Executive Director Mustafa K. Mujeri of the Institute for Inclusive Finance and Development said that the import of industrial raw materials and machinery had been affected by the dollar crisis.

Besides, industrial production costs have increased because of energy price hikes, he said.

The BBS update also showed that consumption and investment by the private sector, the mainstay of the country’s economy, will grow by 66.78 per cent and 23.51 per cent respectively, in FY24.

The consumption and investment growth rates were 68.58 per cent and 24.18 per cent in FY23.

Public sector consumption remained static at 5.6 per cent, but investment grew by more than a half percentage point in FY 24.

BBS has projected an increase in per capita income of $35 amid the depreciation of local currency by around Tk 10 between FY23 and FY24.

Economists said that the slower-than-expected growth was almost certain due to restrictions on imports amid the shortage of dollars and decade-high inflation.

The slow growth hampered the full-fledged recovery from the economic downturn caused by the Covid pandemic in FY21 and FY22.

According to the latest BBS calculation, the country’s overall GDP stood at $459 billion, compared to $452 billion in FY23.