Bangladesh Witnessing Strong Economic Recovery: SANEM

The country’s business confidence score jumped to 60.67 in the final quarter of 2021 from 52.31 in the previous year while witnessing a strong recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, said a study report. 

South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) conducted the 7th Round of Nationwide Firm-level Survey and revealed the findings through a virtual conference titled “New Wave of Covid-19: State of Business Confidence in Bangladesh” on Monday.

“Over the quarters, there has been a gradual recovery in business activities. Present Business Status Index (PBSI) approached the mark of 60 in the October-December 2021 quarter from 56.79 in the earlier quarter, indicating a continuation of improvement,” said the report.

As per the survey findings, about 17 per cent of the respondents in the seventh round of the survey (January 2022) observed that Bangladesh is on a path of strong recovery, while it was 21 per cent in the earlier round.

Similarly, their views on moderate recovery have fallen to 44 per cent in this round from 52 per cent in the previous round. The improvement is also visible in all sub-indicators. However, a considerable improvement has been observed in the profitability and sales or export order sub-indicators, it added.

In line with the report, faster recovery has been observed in RMG, textile, restaurant, food processing, and pharmaceuticals sectors when compared year-on-year.

However, overall business confidence in January-March 2022 faces a decline in comparison to the October-December 2021 quarter. The decline is visible across all sub-components of BCI.

Most of the sectors have expressed lesser confidence for the upcoming quarter, reflecting their growing concern about the advent of Omicron.