A persisting dollar crunch together with loan scams, capital flight, lax governance, sharp hike in the prices of essentials and widening inequality kept the country’s economy under pressure in 2022.
Economists, however, said that the tumultuous year of 2022 had started on a positive note with the inauguration of the Padma Bridge in January, promising recovery from the economic fallout of the prolonged Covid pandemic.
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But the war in Ukraine since February made fuel oils, fertiliser and food costly on the global market, resulting in a dollar crisis for import-dependent Bangladesh amid the spectre of an unprecedented bankruptcy and regime change in its South Asian neighbour Sri Lanka.
The government has recently, in a pre-emptive move, struck a preliminary deal to borrow $4.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
A lower inflow of remittance has aggravated the dollar shortage and adversely affected manufacturing, power generation, prices of essentials, income and consumption across the board.
The dollar shortage that fanned high inflation undermined many positive outcomes like a substantial rise in overseas employment, the launch of elevated metro rail in the capital in late December and the scheduled commissioning of the tunnel under the River Karnaphuli in January.
‘In the…
