The government estimates that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) will grow by 6.21 percent in the current fiscal year (FY2007-08), despite fears that economic growth might dip as much as one percentage point.
Besides, inflation rate has dropped to 7.66 percent, as point-to-point inflation fell by 2.4 percentage points between March and April, Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam said yesterday.
He was talking to the reporters after yesterday’s National Economic Council (NEC) meeting chaired by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have both said over the past year that they fear the GDP growth may fall by around one percentage point due to a number of natural disasters and government-driven institutional reforms.
Aziz said that inflation was at 10.06 percent in March, which fell to 7.66 percent in April.
Asked how inflation could have gone down with soaring prices of essentials, the finance adviser said that the prices have remained high only in Dhaka, but there has been a fall in commodity prices across the country.
“Most people are looking at it from a Dhaka-centric perspective,” Aziz said.
Last week, a report by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said that people have lost 37.6 percent of their income to rising inflation over the past year.
Talking about it, Aziz said, “I do not know their methodologies, but how could real income fall when nominal income levels have not fallen even if inflation was at 11 percent. So there is no question of incomes falling by 37 percent.”
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