The government's initial projection for the current financial year was 7.2 percent, the minister, Mustafa Kamal, told a news conference. He attributed the record growth to steady exports and robust agricultural output. He said annual per capita income would rise to $1,602, up from $1,466 in the previous financial year. Garment exports and remittances from Bangladeshis working overseas are the key drivers of the nation's more than $200 billion economy. The World Bank, however, has projected a 6.8 percent economic growth for Bangladesh for the year, citing slower growth of exports and remittances. For July-April, exports rose 3.9 percent to $28.72 billion from a year earlier, but 4.25 percent below the target, on slower growth of garment sales.
Remittances are Bangladesh's second-biggest source of foreign income, after garments, but they fell 16 percent in the July-April period, to $10.29 billion, partly because of the impact of lower oil prices. Early this year, the central bank kept its key policy interest rates unchanged, citing overall macroeconomic stability and a steady inflation outlook. The central bank had cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point in January 2016 for the first time in nearly three years, as easing inflation gave it room to help to spur economic growth.
Copyright Reuters, 2017