Bangladesh’s per capita income, GDP growth miss projections

These fail to reach provisionally estimated figures

Bangladesh has registered a gross national per capita income of $2,793 in 2021-22 — $31 lower than the government estimate, according to final data released by the national statistical agency.

Gross Domestic Product growth was 7.1 percent, 0.15 percentage points less than projected, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.

The government’s provisional estimates were $2,824 per capita income and 7.25 percent GDP growth for the last fiscal year.

Ziauddin Ahmed, a director at the BBS, said the devaluation of the taka against the dollar caused the per capita income to go down. 

“The dollar cost Tk 85.52 when we made the estimate last fiscal year. We’ve increased the exchange rate to Tk 86.33 in the final report.”

The BBS did not take into consideration further hike in dollar price in the going fiscal year.  

A fall in the growth of the industrial, manufacturing and services sectors caused the overall GDP growth figure to drop, said Ziauddin.

The estimated growth in the industrial sector was projected to be 10.44 percent but it fell short at 9.85 percent while manufacturing grew by 11.41 percent against an estimation of 12.31 percent and services rose by 6.26 percent, lower than the estimated 6.31 percent.