Costs of a day's shutdown
The Centre for Policy Dialogue found that a single day's shutdown shaves around 0.9 percent off the gross domestic product a year at market price.
The study, which quantifies the economic loss from a day's shutdown, also found that it causes exports to drop 2.4 percent and imports 0.8 percent.
The government also stands to lose 0.7 percent in revenue and its deficit would widen by 7.1 percent.
The employment of labour declines by 0.9 percent, fixed investment 0.1 percent and household consumption 0.8 percent, it says.
The leading think-tank disclosed the findings of the study during a press briefing at its office in Dhaka while presenting the analytical review of the country's macroeconomic performance in the outgoing fiscal year.
CPD applied data from the early months of 2013 on the computable general equilibrium model, a class of economic models that use actual data to estimate how the economy would react to changes in policy, technology or other external factors.
In the study, a major long-term impact arising from shutdowns has been assumed to be the decline in capital stock.
Shutdowns impact certain sectors, such as transportation and retail, more than others (mining, agriculture and energy), the study found.
“The increasing violence and damage of transport and public properties have both short as well as medium to long-term adverse implications for the economy, undermining both current performance as well as growth potentials of the economy,” the research firm said.
“In the current context, it is critically important to identify modalities for a mutually acceptable political situation.”
A congenial environment could be created through immediate cessation of all destructive and subversive activities, release of the opposition political leaders from jail to create an enable an environment for dialogue and the announcement of a roadmap along with a framework towards holding a free and fair election, it added.
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