The Finance Division’s projection about the country’s economic growth rate for the next fiscal year is dissimilar to that of the General Economic Division of the Planning Commission.
According to the Finance Division, the country’s projected growth rate in the next fiscal year may be above 7% despite political turmoil over the last few months while the General Economics Division (GED) put it at 6.6% under the Perspective Plan 2010-2020, 1.7% down from the previous target of 8.3% growth.
Requesting anonymity, an official of the Finance Division said political unrest like hartal and blockade have almost come to a halt over the last couple of weeks, and the estimated growth rate will be above 7%.
“We know the GED estimation that was done in the middle of political turmoil,” he said.
The growth rate of next fiscal year along with other economic indicators will be fixed at today’s fiscal coordination council meeting in the Finance Division, he added.
The GED revised the medium-term macro-economic framework (MTMF) growth rate for 6.6 % last month in the meeting of national steering committee on preparing the seventh five-year plan.
The meeting was held at the NECconference room in the city with Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair.
GED member of Prof Shamsul Alam the Planning Ministry told the Dhaka Tribune, “We have calculated that the next fiscal year growth rate will be 6.6% from 8.3%. Not only internal factors but also external factors like global recession are also responsible for cutting down the next fiscal year growth rate.”
“We think that the next fiscal year growth will not be above 7%. The current current fiscal year is being impacted a little by the so-called political turmoil,” he further said.
As per the seventh five-year projections, the next fiscal year revenue-GDP percentage will be 12%, private sector credit growth 14.5%, domestic credit growth 16%, percentage of investment-GDP 28.9%.
Those economic indicators of the country will be discussed at the fiscal coordination council meeting, according to sources in the Finance Division.
