Bangladesh Economy in FY2017-18 Interim Review of Macroeconomic Performance

Abstract

As part of its regular exercise to review the performance of the economy and analyse the key emerging development trends, CPD closely monitors the economy throughout a fiscal year. The present report is the third instalment of the State of the Bangladesh Economy in FY2017-18 prepared under CPD’s flagship programme titled Independent Review of Bangladesh’s Development (IRBD). The objective of this report is to track trends in major macroeconomic variables and present an assessment of the performance of key sectors of Bangladesh economy during FY2017-18 in the run-up to the national budget for FY2018-19. The final instalment of this year’s IRBD analysis will be released immediately after the presentation of the FY2018-19 budget, with CPD’s immediate reactions to the fiscal-budgetary proposals of the national budget. This report highlights four key areas that informs macro-financial performance of the Bangladesh economy, focusing on vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and, suggests ways to deal with these issues in the short term through budgetary measures. These broad areas are: fiscal and budgetary framework (section 1.2), monetary and banking sector performance (section 1.3), capital market (section 1.4), and external sector performance (section 1.5). The report makes use of the most recent data from available official and credible international sources, as well as insights gleaned from key informants to review and analyse the trends of relevant macroeconomic and development correlates. The report concludes with highlighting a number of urgent measures to be pursued by policymakers and depicting the outlook for the economy in the coming days.