The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected a 7.30 per cent economic growth of Bangladesh in 2019.
The April 2019 version of the World Economic Outlook (WEO), released on Tuesday morning in Washington, DC, unveiled the projection. The title of the outlook is ‘Growth Slowdown, Precarious Recovery.’
The IMF also projected that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Bangladesh will face slower growth of 7.0 per cent both in 2020 and 2021.
The average inflation rate will hit 5.40 per cent in the current year.
Bangladesh estimates its annual GDP growth on its financial year basis (July-June). The IMF report, however, did not mention it and made the projection on the calendar year basis.
“Data refer to calendar years, except in the case of a few countries that use fiscal years; Table F lists the economies with exceptional reporting periods for national accounts and government finance data for each country,” said a note in the report.
The ‘Table F’ lists 29 economies, including four from South Asia -- Bhutan, India, Pakistan and Nepal, but not Bangladesh.
The latest outlook of the IMF also projected that the global economy will grow by 3.3 per cent in the current year, which was 3.6 per cent in the past year.
“Reflecting the slowdown in activity in the latter half of 2018 and the first half of 2019, global growth is set to moderate from 3.6 per cent in 2018 to 3.3 per cent in 2019, and then to return to 3.6 per cent in 2020,” said the report.
A media briefing was arranged to formally unveil the WEO on the eve of World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings in 2019. Gita Gopinath, Economic Counsellor of IMF, presented the highlights of the flagship report of the IMF at its headquarters on Tuesday morning (Washington time).
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