| Summary: | Bangladesh has maintained its robust growth performance. Exports and remittances have been buoyant. Agriculture had bumper harvests. Overall inflation has slowed as decelerating food inflation offset a pickup in non-food inflation. Monetary expansion has been short of target as private sector credit growth slowed and the Bangladesh Bank siphoned off banking liquidity by selling dollars to defend the taka. Vulnerabilities in the banking system and capital market persisted. Higher export and lower import growth reduced the current account deficit, but a decline in the financial account surplus diluted the impact of the current account deficit decline on the overall balance of payments deficit. The budget deficit increased in FY18 but remained below the 5 percent of GDP target. Low revenue collection continues to be a major challenge as policy and administrative reforms have stalled and, in some instances, reversed. Key structural reform challenges are to mitigate the financial sector vulnerabilities, strengthen revenue mobilization, manage public investments better, meet the infrastructure gap, enhance human capital and streamline business regulation. Addressing these reform challenges will be critical for reinforcing future productivity growth. This report provides an assessment of the state of the Bangladesh economy, outlook, risks, and the key reform challenges the economy is currently facing. The coverage includes developments in the real sector focusing on growth and its components; inflation; monetary and financial sector developments; external sector developments focusing on the balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves and the exchange rate; and fiscal developments focusing on revenue mobilization, public expenditures, and deficit financing. The special focus in this update is on regulatory predictability based on an analysis of firm level survey data
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