GDP (Gross Domestic Product):

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and
services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period. As a broad measure of overall
domestic production, it functions as a comprehensive scorecard of a given country’s economic growth.

We would first take a look of the GDP of Bangladesh before we became independent.

Figure: GDP of Bangladesh from 1962 – 1971

(Source: https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/bangladesh?year=1971 )

We can see that we had a relatively poorer GDP at that time which was only about approximately 9000
Million USD.

After we became independent, we had to start from beginning. We had a lot of political and socio-
economic turmoil in the next two decades. So, there wasn’t much improvement in GDP that regard. Let
us look the GDP of Bangladesh decade by decade basis.

From 1971 to 1981, it is

As we can see only had GDP of between 8 Billion USD to 20 Billion USD.

From the year 1981 to 1991, it is

We can see here, GDP increased to around 30 Billion USD.

From the year 1991 to 2001, it is

As we can see, GDP grew up-to 50 Billion USD.

From the year 2001 to 2011, it is

We can see here, GDP increased to around 130 Billion USD.

After 2010, we have been enjoying political stability. For this reason, we will see that we are having a
steady growth in our GDP. Let take a look at our GDP from 2011 to 2020.
In the above figure GDP is shown in the current market price of Bangladeshi Taka. We can see it grew
steading from the 2011 to 2020. In 2011-12, GDP was 1155204 Crore BDT equivalent to about 135
Billion USD. In 2015-16, GDP grew to 1732864 Crore BDT equivalent to about 204 Billion USD. In the
year, 2019-20, it rose up to 2796378 Crore BDT equivalent to about 329 Billion USD.

GDP growth rate is a relevant information here if we want to understand the real impact in our
economy. The GDP growth rate from the year 1965 to 2015 is given below. As we can see, we had a
sharp downfall of GDP growth in the year 1971-72. Then it picked up slowly. In the year 2015, the
growth rate of GDP was just about 7 percent.
GDP growth rate from 2016-17 to 2019-20 is given below.

Here, we can see had GDP growth rate of 8.15 in fiscal year 2018-19. But due to pandemic, it
plummeted to 5.24 in the fiscal year 2019-20.
Very recently Bangladesh taken the initiative to implement 8 th Five Year Plan that is from 2020 to 2025.
In this plan, expected GDP growth by the year 2024-25 is 8.5%.

In order to become a developed by the year 2041, Bangladesh has taken 2 nd perspective plan that spans
from 2021 to 2041. In this planning, it is expected that GDP growth rate will be 9%. From 2021-2041, in
this span of 20 years, the average GDP growth is expected to be around 10%.

Ref:

1. https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/bangladesh?year=1971 (GDP Bangladesh Prev.)

2. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
3. Bangladesh Economic Review 2020