GDP growth falls to 1.81%, marking a four-year low

In the first quarter (July-September) of the 2024-25 fiscal year, GDP growth fell to 1.81%, the lowest in nearly four years. During the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, 2023-24, GDP growth stood at 6.04%. On Monday (January 6), the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) released GDP data for the first three months of the current fiscal year. The last time GDP growth dropped below this level was during the October-December quarter of the 2020-21 fiscal year, when it fell to 0.93%.

Experts attribute the decline in GDP growth to disruptions in the industrial sector caused by the student uprising and the subsequent unrest in July-August, significantly affecting economic performance in the first quarter of the fiscal year.

The provisional GDP figures for the 2024-25 fiscal year estimate the GDP size at Tk 12,665,074 crore. In contrast, during the first quarter of the 2023-24 fiscal year, GDP was Tk 19,703,010 crore, with a growth rate of 6.04%.

The GDP data reflects performance across the agriculture, industry, and services sectors.

• Agriculture Sector: Growth declined to 0.16% in the first quarter of 2024-25, compared to 0.35% during the same period last year.
• Industrial Sector: Growth slowed to 2.13%, significantly lower than the 8.22% recorded in the first quarter of the previous fiscal year.
• Services Sector: Growth fell to 1.54%, compared to 5.07% in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year.

Meanwhile, food inflation in the country eased to 12.92% in December, down from 13.8% in November. Overall inflation also decreased to 10.89% in December, compared to 11.38% in November, driven by declining food prices, according to the latest BBS data.