Bangladesh’s economic growth narrative under the former Awami League government was artificially inflated by an average of 3.5 percentage points annually, claimed Debapriya Bhattacharya, head of the panel behind a new white paper on the state of the economy.

He made these remarks at a lecture titled “The State of Bangladesh Economy: What Is To Be Done?”, held at The Westin Dhaka yesterday.

The event, jointly organized by the Bay of Bengal Institute and Cosmos Foundation, highlighted discrepancies in Bangladesh’s reported economic growth. Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), stated, “The first and foremost thing we did was unpack the growth story. It was a narrative of high growth, but our assessment shows that, on average, growth was inflated by 3.5 percentage points.”

He criticized the “public data ecosystem” as being politically manipulated to produce favorable statistics disconnected from ground realities. “For instance, when a 7% growth rate was claimed, the actual growth was closer to 3% to 3.5%,” Bhattacharya noted.

The white paper, supported by a World Bank study, identified inconsistencies in structural growth drivers—such as trade, foreign direct investment, macroeconomic stability, and political stability—which historically explained growth.

However, these drivers failed to justify the claimed growth rates, particularly between 2015 and 2019, when 3.7 percentage points of GDP growth remained unaccounted for.

Bhattacharya pointed to weak private sector investment as a major flaw in the growth narrative. “Private sector investment as a share of GDP never surpassed 23% during the 15 years analyzed,” he said, adding that capital machinery imports and credit flow also did not support the claimed growth figures.

The panel also revealed alleged political interference in the public data system. “It was astonishing to learn from discussions with the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics that some ministers would delay approving reports because they disliked the inflation figures or demanded revised growth data,” Bhattacharya stated.