Bringing Bangladesh economy back from the brink is success: Salehuddin

The advisor calls current economic outlook “reasonably satisfactory”

Finance Advisor Salehuddin Ahmed has said the “key achievement” of his first year in office has been steering Bangladesh’s economy back from the brink of collapse to a “normal” footing.

Speaking at a press conference at the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday, he described the outlook as “reasonably satisfactory”.

Citing a turnaround from what he called an earlier “ICU-like” condition, he said “all indicators are now positive”.

Foreign exchange reserves, stability of the dollar price, inflation, bank loans and other sectors show improvement, he added.

He described the current outlook as “reasonably satisfactory”, despite the economy having faced what he called an unprecedented financial crisis.

“The way money was looted from the banking sector has not been seen anywhere else in the world,” he said.

“Massive disorder, corruption and a lack of governance had pushed the economy to the edge.”

Salehuddin said limited fiscal capacity worsened the situation, but the economy has since “stabilised”.

“We’ve recovered from that point, though it would have been better to move faster,” he added.