International Monetary Fund has retained its projection for Bangladesh’s economic growth at 7 per cent, 0.65 percentage points lower than the government’s estimate, for the current fiscal year 2017-2018. The global lending agency made the projection in its latest World Economic Outlook-April 2018, released in Washington on Tuesday.IMF in its previous WEO-October 2017 made the same outlook for Bangladesh economy. According to the provisional estimate of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country’s gross domestic product growth would be 7.65 per cent, higher than the government target of 7.4 per cent made in the national budget for the FY18. IMF’s projection is, however, higher than the forecast of World Bank and similar to Asian Development Bank. World Bank last week said that the potential GDP growth rate or long-term capacity of the growth was between 6.5 per cent and 6.6 per cent for the year.ADB, however, projected that the economic growth of the country would be 7 per cent in the year. IMF also said that the country’s economic growth in medium-term would remain at 7 per cent in FY 19-FY23.It also estimated that Bangladesh economy grew by 7.1 per cent in last FY 2017. It also projected that annual inflation rate would reach 6 per cent this year, higher than its previous projection at 5.8 per cent.The factors behind the IMF’s GDP projection for Bangladesh at lower rate could not be known as it did not release any analysis on Bangladesh growth.In its report, the IMF projected that the current account deficit would be 2 per cent of the GDP, higher than it projected 1.3 per cent in October 2017.In medium-term, the deficit would reach 1.7 per cent of GDP, it projected. The global lending agency also said that the global growth would keep a steady pace in the current and coming years, buoyed by stronger trade and US fiscal stimulus.IMF kept the global growth projection unchanged at 3.9 per cent for both FY 2018 and 2019.US increased tariffs, however, could damage market confidence and output, it said.
