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FAX: [880] (2) 883-744

Flag description: green with a large red disk slightly to the hoist
side of center; green is the traditional color of Islam

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 - $155.1 billion (1996 est.)

GDP - real growth rate: 4.7% (1996)

GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $1,260 (1996 est.)

GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 31%
industry: 18%
services: 51% (1995 est.)

Inflation rate - consumer price index: 4% (FY95/96)

Labor force:
total: 50.1 million
by occupation: agriculture 65%, services 21%, industry and mining 14%
(1989)
note: extensive export of labor to Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman (1991)

Unemployment rate: 35.9% (1996)

Budget:
revenues : $4.1 billion
expenditures: $6 billion, including capital expenditures of $3 billion
(FY95/96 est.)

Industries: jute manufacturing, cotton textiles, food processing,
steel, fertilizer

Industrial production growth rate: 5.7% (1996 est.)

Electricity - capacity: 2.98 million kW (1994)

Electricity - production: 10