Dip in industrial output dents FY24 growth to 4.22pc

Industrial output saw a massive plunge from the ousted Sheikh Hasina government's doctored statistics in the FY24 revised export earnings estimation, causing Bangladesh's overall economic growth to fall markedly, according to official data released on Monday.

The final economic growth for the last fiscal year was lowered by 1.60 percentage points to only 4.22 per cent as real export earnings were much lower than the statistics published during the previous regime, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data showed.

The BBS preliminary estimation put the FY24 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth at 5.82 per cent.

Per capita income was also reduced by $46 to $2,738 in the final record from $2,784 in the preliminary estimation.

According to BBS, the industrial sector growth was cut to 3.51 per cent in the final GDP data, which was estimated at 6.66 per cent in the preliminary report some months ago.

BBS said, "The fall in industrial production following the revised export statistics is the key reason behind the downward GDP growth rate in the final estimation than the provisional figure."

"Earlier, BBS provided preliminary data based on the available export data in the first half (July-December) of FY24, where export growth was shown at 12.21 per cent. But when it was revised later, export earnings were down by 21.07 per cent," it said.

According to the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the revised annual export earnings for FY24 were recorded at Tk 5.23 trillion after deducting from the fabricated figures of Tk 6.63 trillion in the preliminary estimation.

Meanwhile, the last government, despite an economic downturn, outlined an ambitious budget for FY24, expecting a 7.5 per cent GDP growth.

International development partners, including the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), were very critical of the growth projections as various problems had arisen in the macro-economic landscape in FY23.

BBS revised the overall GDP size down to $450 billion in the FY24 final record from $459 billion in the preliminary estimation.

Among the sectors, agricultural growth was finalised at 3.30 per cent from the preliminary figure of 3.21 per cent. Industrial growth was slashed to 3.51 per cent from the preliminary estimation of 6.66 per cent.

Besides, the services sector growth was recorded at 5.09 per cent in the final count against 5.80 per cent in the preliminary data.

GDP growth started falling after a stunning 7.10 per cent growth in FY22, reaching 5.78 per cent in FY23 and 4.22 per cent in FY24.

Investments, domestic savings, and national savings also had poor performance in the final GDP calculation.

The investment-to-GDP ratio was recorded at 30.70 per cent, the domestic saving-to-GDP ratio at 23.96 per cent, and the national savings-to-GDP ratio at 28.42 per cent.

[email protected]