@Bangladesh:Economy
Economy-overview: Despite sustained domestic and international efforts to improve economic and demographic prospects, Bangladesh remains one of the world's poorest, most densely populated, and least developed nations. Annual GDP growth has averaged over 4% in recent years from a low base. Its economy is largely agricultural, with the cultivation of rice the single most important activity in the economy. Major impediments to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, the inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, a rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy resources (natural gas), inadequate power supplies, and slow implementation of economic reforms. Frequent strikes that crippled the economy in 1995 and early 1996 subsided after Prime Minister Sheikh HASINA Wajed's Awami League government assumed power in mid-1996, allowing a return to normal economic activity. The current government has made some headway improving the climate for foreign investors and liberalizing the capital markets; for example, it has negotiated with foreign firms for oil and gas exploration, better countrywide distribution of cooking gas, and the construction of natural gas pipelines and power plants. Progress on other economic reforms has been halting because of opposition from the bureaucracy, public sector unions, and other vested interest groups.
GDP: purchasing power parity-$167 billion (1997 est.)
GDP-real growth rate: 5.5% (1997 est.)
GDP-per capita: purchasing power parity-$1,330 (1997 est.)
GDP-composition by sector: agriculture: 30% industry: 18% services: 52% (1996)
Inflation rate-consumer price index: 2.5% (1996)
Labor force: total: 56 million by occupation: agriculture 63%, services 25%, industry and mining 10% (1996) note: extensive export of labor to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, and Oman (1996)
Unemployment rate: 35.2% (1996)
Budget: revenues: $3.6 billion expenditures: $5.3 billion, including capital expenditures of $3 billion (FY96/97)