Bangladesh Economy : Quick look Bangladesh is an agricultural country. With some three-fifths of the population engaged in farming.

Jute and tea are principal sources of foreign exchange. Major impediments to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, inefficient state-owned enterprises, inadequate port facilities, a rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy resources (natural gas), insufficient power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. Economic reform is stalled in many instances by political infighting and corruption at all levels of government. Progress also has been blocked by opposition from the bureaucracy, public sector unions, and other vested interest groups. The newly-elected BNP government, led by Prime Minister Khaleda ZIA, has the parliamentary strength to push through needed reforms, but the party's level of political will to do so remains undetermined. For higher GDP growth, investments in both public and private sectors will need to be accelerated. The prevailing political and economic stability has greatly encouraged investment in the private sector. The trend of foreign direct investment is very encouraging. The government is committed to market economy and has been pursuing policies for supporting and encouraging private investment and eliminating unproductive expenditures in the public sector. A number of measures have been taken to strengthen the planning system and intensify reforms in the financial sector. The present government believe that wastage of resources is a far greater obstacle to development than inadequacy of resources. It is common knowledge that many development efforts in the past years turned into exercises in futility because of inefficiency and corruption in high places. Terrorism was allowed to paralyse law and order. Administration was over centralized at the cost of local government institutions. The government has, therefore, decided to decentralize administration in the quickest possible time. GDP: purchasing power parity - $230 billion (2001 est.) GDP-real growth rate: 5.6% (2001 est.) GDP-per capita: purchasing power parity - $1,750 (2001 est.) GDP-composition by sector: agriculture: 30%. industry: 18%. services: 52% (2000). Population below poverty line: 35.6% (1995-96 est.) Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.9%. highest 10%: 28.6% (1996). Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5.8% (2000) Labor force: 64.1 million (1998). note: extensive export of labor to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Malaysia; workers' remittances estimated at $1.71 billion in 1998-99. Labor force-by occupation: agriculture 65%, services 25%, industry and mining 10%

(1996) Unemployment rate: 35.2% (1996). Budget: revenues: $4.9 billion expenditures: $6.8 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA (2000). Industries: jute manufacturing, cotton textiles, garments, tea processing, paper newsprint, cement, chemical, light engineering, sugar, food processing, steel, fertilizer. Industrial production growth rate: 6.2% (2001) Electricity-production: 13.493 billion kWh (2000). Electricity-production by source: fossil fuel: 92.45% hydro: 7.55% nuclear: 0%. other: 0% (2000). Electricity-consumption: 12.548 billion kWh (2000) Electricity-exports: 0 kWh (2000). Electricity-imports: 0 kWh (2000). Agriculture-products: rice, jute, tea, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes, tobacco, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruit; beef, milk, poultry. Exports: $6.6 billion (2001) Exports-commodities: garments, jute and jute goods, leather, frozen fish and seafood. Exports-partners: US 31.8%, Germany 10.9%, UK 7.9%, France 5.2%, Netherlands 5.2%, Italy 4.42% (2000). Imports: $8.7 billion (2001) Imports-commodities: machinery and equipment, chemicals, iron and steel, textiles, raw cotton, food, crude oil and petroleum products, cement. Imports-partners: India 10.5%, EU 9.5%, Japan 9.5%, Singapore 8.5%, China 7.4% (2000) Economic aid-recipient: $1.575 billion (2000 est.) Currency: 1 taka (Tk) = 100 poisha. Exchange rates: Taka per US dollar - 57.756 (January 2002), 55.807 (2001), 52.142 (2000), 49.085 (1999), 46.906 (1998), 43.892 (1997) Fiscal year: 1 July-30 June.

Basic Economic Facts

GDP: US$ 105bn (IMF) GDP per head: US$638 (IMF) GDP Growth: 6.0% (IMF 2010 est.) Human Development Index Ranking: 129th out of 168 countries (UN) Inflation: 8.1% (IMF) Foreign Exchange Reserves: $11.2 billion (IMF) Export partners (goods): EU27 (51%), US (26%), India (4%), Canada (3.5%), China (1.7%) (WTO) Import partners (goods): China (15.6%), India (13.2%), EU27 (9.7%), Kuwait (7.2%), Indonesia (5.1%) (WTO) Inward Remittances: US$ 11bn, 12% of GDP (World Bank 2010 est.) Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index ranking: 146th of 187 countries World Bank Doing Business Ranking: 107th of 183 countries Principal Exports: Garments account for 80% of Bangladeshs exports to the UK. Seafood is also a significant Bangladesh export. Almost 10% of Bangladeshs world-wide exports go to the UK. Aid & development: 115 million people still live on less than US$2 per day. The UK is the largest bilateral donor to Bangladesh (1 billion during 2011-2015), helping very poor Bangladeshis secure a better quality education for more children; improving family planning and reducing deaths in childbirth, strengthening livelihoods and encouraging private investment, helping more people adapt to climate change and prepare for natural disasters, and strengthen key democratic systems and institutions. Outlook for Bangladesh: Bangladesh has made significant economic progress in the past 10 years. Annual economic growth has averaged 5-6% since 2000 and incomes have doubled in less than 30 years. GDP growth risks being dented in 2012 by double digit inflation, high levels of government borrowing and a growing trade deficit. The agricultural sector is a major component of the Bangladeshi economy, such that weather conditions can have a significant impact on growth. The sector contributes 20% of GDP and employs around half of the working population. The financial, telecommunications and energy sectors have the potential for high growth, but Bangladeshs challenging business environment has meant foreign direct investment has remained stagnant at around US$ 1bn. Remittances play a major role in reducing poverty and increasing economic growth by driving consumer spending. Remittance inflows have more than doubled in the last five years but this growth is expected to slow following the global financial crisis. Developments in the Middle East could affect remittances going forward. Constraints to growth: According the World Economic Forums Global Competitiveness Report, companies find inadequate infrastructure, inefficient government bureaucracy, corruption and political instability the most problematic factors for doing business. Shortages of power and gas are impeding industrial growth. Energy infrastructure in Bangladesh

is inadequate and current levels of investment in the sector are low. The government is however planning expansion of oil and coal fired power-generation capacity, as well as awarding contracts for gas exploration. In the longer term, low levels of education also limit Bangladeshs growth prospects. With adult literacy at only 56% (World Bank 2009 est.), significant improvements are needed if Bangladesh is to reap its demographic dividend.

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If We Had To Illustrate The State Of The Economy In 3 Charts, These Are The Ones We Would Pick
Joe Weisenthal | Sep. 30, 2012, 10:27 AM | 7,726 | 18

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I was fortunate enough to be invited to be a guest on MSNBC's Up W/ Chris Hayes yesterday. You can find all the videos here. Before I went on, I was asked to send over a few charts that I thought were particularly telling about the state of the economy, and which might also help frame the state of the economy in terms of what it means for the election. Here are the three charts I sent over. The first is the year-over-year change in non-seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims.

As you can see, initial jobless claims each week have been about 10% lower than they were before for basically two years now. Sure it's noisy, with some spikes and dips, but the basic point is that this measure has shown incredibly steady improvement, which speaks to the general sense that things aren't great, but things aren't horrible and seem to getting better. The next chart shows the relationship between home prices, housing starts, GDP and the stock market.

As you can see, it was really the fall in home prices (red line) that lead to the collapse of the economy and the market in 2008. With home prices seemingly starting to inch up a little bit, the potential for a wealth affect that helps both homeowners and banks seems quite significant. And finally, here's a look at the latest Services ISM (blue line) vs. Manufacturing ISM (red line).

Manufacturing is clearly the weak spot right now, in large part due to the slowing global economy. The domestic economy continues to show expansion, in large part based on housing. If you want to know whether the US is going to go into recession, this is the central tension to watch. Will the weakness in manufacturing spill into the rest of the economy, or will the strength in housing/domestic services win out. This chart also speaks to the relative resilience of the US economy vs. other economies around the world, which are struggling with downturns or slowdowns much more severe than ours.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-of-the-economy-in-3-charts-20129#ixzz2JObncZU4

The State Of The Economy In Two Sentences

Joe Weisenthal | Nov. 11, 2012, 9:26 AM | 6,046 | 28

Atlas von Loon via Wikimedia

Bill McBride at Calculated Risk has an excellent two-sentence summary of the state of the economy:

My view is the economy is not currently in a recession, and that economic growth will pickup in 2013, although there are downside risks from Europe and the potential for a policy mistake in the US (no agreement on the fiscal bluff). As I've noted before, I see two key reason for a pickup in the US: 1) I expect residential investment to increase next year (the key leading indicator for the economy), 2) I think the drag from state and local governments will subside. This is really it. In the past we spotlighted two main reasons to think the economy would be more robust next year. One was the improvement in the household sector. The other was that public-sector employment growth was on the verge of going positive. And then there is the headwind, a possible fiscal mistake. There's this other meme going around that whereas before, the US was the "cleanest dirty shirt" in the global economy, now it's the country that's farthest behind policy-wise. China is stimulating. Europe has the ECB bond buying program, and the US, well... everyone's just waiting for it to get its act together again

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-of-the-economy-2012-11#ixzz2JOcAxDqo