The nation has kicked off talks with ratings agencies to lay the groundwork for a return to international debt markets
Nine-month trade deficit trumps entire previous year
Trade deficit in the first nine months of the current fiscal year has crossed the deficit for the entire previous year.
Published : 8 May 2017, 05:20 PM
Updated : 8 May 2017, 07:33 PM
Economist Zaid Bakht sees it as result of rising oil prices and heavy imports of capital machinery.
Trade deficit swelled 46.76 percent year-on-year to $7.03 billion in July-March, data from Bangladesh Bank shows
The deficit for the entire last fiscal year was $6.27 billion. The year before it was $6.96 billion in fiscal 2014-15.
Trade deficit is a measure of a negative balance of trade in which a country’s imports exceed its exports.
Bakht, research director at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies or BIDS, said a combination of low prices of oil and food drove down Bangladesh’s cost of imports last fiscal year.
At the time, deficit was at a tolerable level because exports were on the rise, he said.
The current fiscal year has bucked the trend as oil prices are back on the upward curve. On top of that, Bangladesh imported capital machinery for large projects, according to the economist.
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