IMF seeks progress on inflation-GDP measurement methodology

Kamruzzaman Bablu :
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked about the progress of reporting inflation (Consumer Price Index), GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and quarterly GDP in a modern way instead of the traditional way.

The organisation has also sought consistent data on Bangladesh’s growth in the past 50 years since independence.
At the same time, IMF has recommended to the Bangladesh government to unify the dollar rate for the country’s import and export items. They want to know when that single rate will be implemented.

The IMF’s six-member staff mission made this recommendation at a meeting with the senior secretary of the Ministry of Commerce of Tapan Kanti Ghosh in his Bangladesh Secretariat office on Tuesday.

Although the visiting IMF mission started its visit on 25th April and is scheduled to leave on Tuesday, but chief of Staff Mission Rahul Anand’s is now in Dhaka, as a result mission visit will be extended to 7th April.

After the meeting, the Secretary of Commerce told waited Journalists that the IMF mission asked to know three issues related to the country’s exports and advised to unify the import and export rate of the US dollar.

He said that the mission has recommended that if the rate of the dollar is unified, both the import and export parties will benefit. I said Bangladesh Bank is now working on it.

On Thursday, the Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB) and Foreign Exchange Dealers Association (BAFEDA) fixed the new rates in the US dollar – Tk 106 for exports and Tk 108 for expatriate income.

Earlier, on April 2 the banks had fixed by two associations that the dollar price of Tk 105 and expatriate income at the rate of Tk 107 for cashing export bills.
Senior Commerce Secretary also said that the mission of the IMF wanted to know whether the export income target will be achieved this year or not. We would not be able to achieve the country’s export target due to the worsening international trade situation because of the Russia and Ukraine war in European Union. This year export income may be a little less than last year.

The Ministry of Commerce had set a target of export earnings of 5,800 crore dollar or Tk 58,000 crore in the current financial year 2022-23. Meanwhile, the country’s traders have retreated again in the fear of export earnings. The total export earnings decreased by 2.49 per cent in the just ended March compared to the same period of the previous year.

According to the data published by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), goods worth 4.64 billion 3.9 million dollars were exported from Bangladesh in March. In addition to negative growth compared to the same period of the previous year, the total income is 7.5 per cent less than the target.

Although exports were negative in March, there is a growth of 8.07 per cent in the three quarters of the current fiscal year 2022-2023 (July to March). At the end of March, the country’s total export income stood at 4,172 .16 crore dollars. In the same period of the previous financial year which was 3,860.56 crore dollars.
The third or last thing that the IMF delegation wants to know is whether the export income is being smuggled or not? In response to this question, Tapan Kanti Ghosh said, that there was no incident of export income laundering in Bangladesh.

BBS to publish quarterly GDP data from 2024
Meanwhile, The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is taking necessary preparations to publish quarterly reports on the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) from the next year.
The state statistics agency took the decision to meet one of the conditions of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) $4.7 billion loan for Bangladesh.

In addition, the BBS has also completed the compilation of provisional and final data on the country’s GDP for 50 years since independence.

Md Matiar Rahman, Director General of the BBS, shared the information after a meeting with an IMF delegation on same day.

He said, the finance department asked the BBS to do three works- publish hard and soft copies of 50 years’ GDP data, new method of consumer price index and public quarterly GDP report.

The BBS is working as per the instructions of the finance division, Rahman said.

“We have also informed the IMF team about updating our Consumer Price Index (CPI). We have included 722 food and non-food items under 12 categories while it was 412 items under eight categories.”

Now, 95 per cent of the countries across the world follow this method as intake of food items has increased in Bangladesh, which was not incorporated in the previous method, he said.

“We will publish the CPI report with the updated list from April while the target was to publish it from July.”