Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)
in a report released on Sunday said that
energizing investment, consolidating agriculture, protecting external sector,
strengthening public finance and reviewing development administration were the
major challenges before the government.
Presenting the report titled
"state of Bangladesh Economy in FY 2008-09", CPD executive Director
Professor Mustafizur Rahman said that the government should handle every
sector with efficiency so that the economy flourishes and poverty declines.
Referring to a report prepared by
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistic (BBS), he said GDP is expected to post a growth
of 5.88 per cent during FY2008-09. If this actually is the case, it would be
the lowest growth over the last five years and would be considerably less (o.62
per cent) than the targeted growth of 6.5 per cent.
About the issue of legalizing undisclosed money, he said that this should not
be allowed on a continuing basis and there should be a clear distinction
between the undisclosed money earned through legal way and money that was
earned through illegal means.
The report said, the adverse
condition which informed macroeconomic performance in FY 2008-09 led
considerably lower GDP growth projections of around five percent or even lower
by many quarters, including the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
However, a bumper crop harvest, resilience of the service sector, ability to
contain deceleration of export growth and sustained high levels of remittance
flow helped the economy to attain a near-six per cent growth rate in FY2008-09.
In this respect the distinguished fellow of CPD Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya gives his analytical opinion.