DIU Blog

Bangladesh Agricultural production and its impact on GDP

The economy of Bangladesh has experienced significant shifts in trade, fiscal, industrial, agricultural and financial policies over last two decade. After 1971, the values of Real GDP, Per
Capita GDP and their growth rates were very low. The condition improved from 1990. Yet, still
the growth rate of GDP in Bangladesh are not adequate. Many factors are available for this unsatisfactory GDP: the shortage of agricultural food production, low level of exports, high rate of imports, failure in the invitation of much Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a defective banking system with cumulative interest of loans, continuous loss in the public enterprises, underprivileged infrastructure, disorganized taxation, high inflation rate, political instability and the serious deterioration of law and order situation. Its progress can be gleaned from the country’s Real Gross Domestic Product (RGDP) growth of 5 percent on average for the period 1990 to 1998 and 4.6 percent for the period 1980 to 1990. The growth rate of Real Gross Domestic Product was above6 percent on average and in 2009 it was just above 5.5 percent. All over the world (Bangladeshinclusive) GDP has been area of interest to both policy-makers and economists. In past, Bangladesh has received annually the equivalent of close to 6% of GDP in foreign assistance, although this figure has declined to around 4% in recent years. Bangladesh is significantly dependent on external resources and at the behest of the World Bank and the IMF, Bangladesh adopted a set of the short and medium-term economic management. External factors such as export, import, remittances and foreign aid have always played important roles to Bangladesh’s economy, though the relative importance of various external factors has changed over time. The economy of Bangladesh has grown 5-6 per cent per year since 1996 despite inefficient government-controlled enterprises, delays in exploiting natural gas resources, insufficient power supplies, and delayed implementation of economic reform. Bangladesh remains a poor, overpopulated, and inefficiently-governed country. Although more than half of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is generated through the service sector, nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshis are employed in the Agriculture, fisheries and farming sector, with rice as the single-most-important product.

About Writer

Dr. Sayedul Anam is an Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, Daffodil
International University. He completed his PhD from Department of Mathematics in JahangirnagarUniversity. He also completed MBA from Institute of Business Administration, Jahangirnagar University. He teaches different courses in undergraduate and graduate level such as Basic Mathematics, Business Mathematics, Business Statistics, Applied Statistics, Production and Operations Management, and Business Research Methodology. His research interests focus on the stochastic regression, stochastic linear programming model, regression analysis, time series analysis. He has about 20 published research articles in national and international refereed journals on mathematics and statistics issues and has presented in at least 8 international conferences since 2010 to date.