Bangladesh’s economy cannot collapse, insists finance minister

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said on Wednesday that the economy of Bangladesh cannot collapse like that of Sri Lanka as it has adequate foreign exchange reserves to support import bills.

“We do not worry about our economy… in fact (we have) sufficient foreign exchange reserves,” he told reporters following a virtual meeting of the cabinet committee on public purchase and economic affairs, in the city.

He said: “When we took charge of government operations, our foreign exchange reserve was only worth $7.09 billion. Everybody was telling us that our economy has not been doing well amid scarcity of wealth.”

From that small reserve, Bangladesh has now accumulated $40 billion in forex, he added.

The finance minister further said from $7.09 billion, the reserve got to $10 billion and once reached $48billion. Now it stands around $40 billion.

Many media outlets including BBC and even global lender IMF should see this and talk about the real situation of the country, he pointed out.

Kamal said the newspapers get worried only after considering the monthly inflation rate of 7.56 percent. 

“The people of the media are saying that the inflation rate is way too much for the people who are living in Bangladesh but when our government assumed power, the inflation rate was 12.03 percent. We started functioning our government amid it.”

He claimed the average (annual) inflation rate is 5.09 percent.