Economic growth hits 6.12% in Q3 of FY24, highest in three quarters
The GDP in the second quarter also stood at 3.78%, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said in a report published today (9 July).
Bangladesh's economy posted 6.12% growth in the third quarter (January-March) of the recently concluded fiscal year, recovering from the second quarter's low of 3.78% driven by sizeable growth across sectors – agriculture, industry and service.
However, it needs to grow by over 7% in the final quarter to meet the revised annual growth target of 5.8% for FY2023-24, according to the latest data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell to 3.78% in the second quarter from 6.01% in the July-October quarter of FY24. The third quarter growth was higher than 2.30% seen in the same period of the previous fiscal.
Regarding the impact of the $10 billion overstatement in exports on the growth calculation, economist Prof Mustafizur Rahman told The Business Standard, "The size of GDP will change due to the discrepancy in export earnings, but it may not have an impact on growth.
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"This is because the discrepancy in export figures was from the previous fiscal year. As a result, a portion of exports will also be excluded from the fiscal 2022-23."
A distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, Prof Mustafizur said the average growth for the first three-quarters of FY24 stands at around 5.3%. However, the government's target for FY24 is 5.82%. As a result, the fourth quarter will need a significant jump in growth.
Meanwhile, BBS officials said they have not received any official information from any government agency regarding the discrepancy in export figures.
As a result, they are continuing to use the same data as before for the GDP calculation. Currently, they are receiving different export figures on different days.
They said they will work on revising GDP figures once the issue is resolved and they receive official information from the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB).
Meanwhile, Planning Minister Abdus Salam on Tuesday (9 July) said the discrepancy in information from the EPB will lead to a decrease in per capita income and GDP size.
The GDP amounted to Tk13.48 billion in Q3, up from Tk11.44 billion in the same quarter last year.
The agriculture sector's contribution to the GDP saw a big jump from 1.88% in Q3 of FY23 to 5.46% in the last fiscal year.
The contribution of the industries sector also rose by 2.05 percentage points to 7.03%. Service sector contribution also grew from 1.47% to 4.97%.
