The World Bank has made an upward revision in the projected growth rate for Bangladesh for the year 2020-21.
According to the latest update for the South Asian region released on Wednesday, the World Bank said that the prospect for an economic rebound in South Asia is firming up as growth is to increase by 7.2 percent in 2021 and 4.4 percent in 2022 putting the region on the path to recovery.
According to the earlier forecast, Bangladesh was projected to grow at 2.0 percent in the FY 2020-21 and by 1.7 percent in the year 2021-22. The new forecast released by the World Bank has substantially raised the projection for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 to 3.6 percent and 5.1 percent respectively.
Commenting on the update for the South Asian region, World Bank Vice President for the South Asian region Hartwig Schafer said that despite clear signs of an economic rebound, the recovery remains fragile in the region. He urged that the South Asian countries must ramp up their COVID 19 vaccination programme and invest their scarce resources wisely.
The report notes that South Asia’s public spending on healthcare is 2 percent of the GDP which is the lowest in the world. It calls the South Asian countries to raise investment in preventive care, financing of health research and scaling up of health infrastructure.
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