How the economy performed in 2018

This paper recently carried out an opinion poll to get a sense of what went right and what didn't in 2018. Respondents included some 37 prominent businessmen, the presidents of four leading trade bodies, CEOs of banks, non-financial banking institutions, insurance companies; economists and researchers. The positives included some major growth drivers: exports, public spending on infrastructure, remittance and agriculture. Sixty-two percent of respondents pointed out that robust export (62.8 percent) propelled the economy forward in 2018. Inward remittance grew a healthy 32.43 percent and increase in public spending on infrastructure was significant at 54.05 percent. The overall political stability in the country helped move the economy forward, but it could have done much better if nagging bottlenecks could be addressed.

Principal among these are a lack of good governance, the high cost of doing business, low domestic investment, and container congestion at Chittagong port. Bangladesh has, unfortunately, been consistently scoring low scores in the cost of doing business and this situation has to be addressed if we want more businesses (both local and foreign) to register companies. The bottleneck at Chittagong port has proved to be very stubborn because of a lack of policy initiative and the situation will pose a major challenge for the incoming government in 2019, especially in light of the fact that neighbouring India has been granted transit rights at Chittagong port and the volume of container movement is set to rise significantly in the coming year.

Business community leaders hope that stability will remain in the post-election period and there is much concern about whether the next government will take concrete steps to bring back stability in the financial sector. Nearly 46 percent respondents are looking forward to a better business environment. Fewer respondents hoped for a stable energy supply, timely completion of mega projects that would help alleviate traffic congestion—both of which could help put the economy on a much firmer footing in 2019.