Bangladesh’s economy is facing a major tri-pronged challenge— including unabated inflation, snowballing domestic and foreigndebt risk and the slowdown of economic growth where marginalised communities are worst affected, eminent economist Debapriya Bhattacharya has said.
To eradicate these challenges, the focus should be on decent employment, education, social protection, inclusive society, skill development, commodity prices, agriculture, women empowerment, health, governance, infrastructure, children, housing and climate change, he said on Sunday.
Debapriya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and the convener of Citizen's Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh,made the observations while presenting the keynote at a pre-budget discussion organised by CPD in Dhaka.
CPD Executive Director FahmidaKhatun made the welcome remarks at the event, which was also attended by former environment and forest ministerAnisul Islam Mahmud, former planning ministerMA Mannan, and AK Azad, member of the parliament’sLibrary Committee, among others.
Debapriya said that the country was now in a challenging situation where marginalised people were suffering the mostdue to skyrocketinginflation, congestion of fiscal space and the downtrend of GDP growth. “They are not able to spend on food, education and health."
“Rampant inflation is continuously placing immense financial strain on low-income and marginalised communities, exacerbating their economic challenges,” he added.
Debapriya continued, "Debt is 42 per cent of our GDP whereas global to internal debt has doubled. Once upon a time, we used to boast that we never defaulted. But cracks are showing up now on that pride. We have $5 billion in outstanding debt in the energy sector.”
"The [next] budget is coming from the new government under very complicated circumstances. These issues we are urging for implementationare in their election manifesto and the ADP," he added.
