Coronavirus curbs country’s growth rate

With the Covid-19 hitting 200 countries across the world, the country's economic growth hits its lowest point this fiscal year since 2009-10.

According to the budget document, the growth rate is estimated at 5.2 percent in the revised budget from a projected at 8.2 percent.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the 2020-21 fiscal year’s budget on Thursday at the national parliament. An inflation for next fiscal year is estimated at 5.4 percent while total GDP Tk 31,71,500 crore.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said coronavirus has turned the country’s economy upside down with lower fiscal growth, slashing the next fiscal year’s growth rate from 8.5 percent to 8.2 per cent while the outgoing fiscal year rate is estimated 5.2 per cent down from 8.2 percent.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said, “We have a dream of announcing big GDP growth on the occasion of the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The growth rate target of this fiscal year is fixed at 8.3 percent.

Minister said, “Country has not been affected by coronavirus during the first eight months of this fiscal year. Asian Development Bank predicted Bangladesh's growth rate to be 7.8 percent during the first eight months.”

Last week, United Nations predicted that the world economy will contract by 3.2 percent in 2020 amid the coronavirus crisis, the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

But in the worst-case scenario, it said the global economy could contract by a further 0.5 percent in 2021 if a new wave of infections and lockdowns continues in the third quarter, which ends September 30.

ask/wi