Meeting on the medium-term economic framework on 1 November
Economic activity has picked up since an elected government took charge, but the macroeconomy is still not free of risk. Import pressure keeps rising because of the energy crisis. Inflation remains high. There is no good news on investment, revenue collection is slow and employment is not improving.
The finance division therefore considers the macroeconomy still at risk. Against this backdrop it has called a meeting of the working group on the medium-term macroeconomic framework for the 2026-27 fiscal year on 1 November, according to sources concerned. Monjurul Haque, joint secretary of the finance division’s macroeconomics wing, will chair the meeting.
The meeting will discuss GDP growth in the first quarter of 2026-27 and other macroeconomic indicators and review the medium-term framework. Following the government’s decision to move to an April-March fiscal year from 2028-29, it will also treat 2027-28 as a transitional year and work out macroeconomic indicators for a nine-month July-March period.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), inflation has eased somewhat but is still above 8 percent. Economic growth was stuck at 4.14 percent last fiscal year and remains slow this year. Private sector credit growth has fallen to its lowest level. The desired balance between growth, price stability, investment and employment has not yet been reached, and the meeting will review the overall state of the economy in this light.
Sources said the meeting will review inflation control, the pace of growth, foreign exchange reserves, revenue collection, public spending, private investment, employment and the state of the banking sector. It may also give direction on the current risks to the economy and on what policy support each sector needs.
Rising fuel import pressure
Over the past few months the energy sector has put the greatest pressure on import spending. Bangladesh’s fuel import bill rose to a record $10.63 billion in 2025-26, more than double the $5.13 billion of the previous year. Through higher demand for dollars, pressure on reserves, higher fuel subsidies and rising industrial production costs, import spending has become a major risk to the macroeconomy.
In the latest BBS figures, point-to-point inflation rose slightly to 8.32 percent in September from 8.26 percent in August.
A big blow to growth
Growth is another major weakness. In the latest provisional BBS estimate, GDP grew 4.14 percent in 2025-26, against a final 3.49 percent the year before. Growth has recovered somewhat but has not returned to the average of over 6 percent of the previous decade, and it is slowing every year.
In the 2026-27 budget the government set a growth target of 6.50 percent and aims to bring inflation down to 7.50 percent. That means a big goal of raising growth by about two and a half percentage points from 4.14 percent in one year.
Forecasts by international bodies are far more cautious than the government’s target. The IMF has given a weak forecast for Bangladesh’s growth and spoken of fiscal, inflation and banking sector pressures. The World Bank has also named slow growth, weak revenue collection, banking sector stress and weak private investment as major challenges.
Investment stalls
Private investment is now one of the economy’s biggest weaknesses. According to the latest Bangladesh Bank data, private sector credit growth fell to just 4.47 percent in June from 4.98 percent in May. It had been close to 5 percent before but has now dropped to a low level.
Pressure on jobs
Slower growth hits employment hardest. According to the latest Labour Force Survey 2024, the country’s labour force totals 71.71 million, of whom 48.02 million are men and 23.69 million women. On average 1.36 million people enter the labour market every year, so jobs must be created for about 1.3-1.4 million new people each year. Unless investment and output grow at the desired rate, creating decent jobs for them will be difficult. Jobs for young people in particular are now a major challenge for the economy.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report