Bangladesh’s economy to be 25th largest by 2035

Bangladesh is heading to become the world's 25th largest economy in 2035, says a recent report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

By 2025, it will be the 34th largest economy in the world and will continue with the 2nd place in South Asia.

Between 2020 and 2035, the CEBR forecasts that Bangladesh's position in the World Economic League Table will improve considerably, with its ranking rising from 41st to 25th by 2035.

With a purchasing power parity adjusted GDP per capita of $5,139 in 2020, Bangladesh is a lower-middle-income country. In 2025, the size of Bangladesh's economy will be $488 billion at the current price.

Between 2021 and 2025, the CEBR forecasts that the annual GDP growth rate will accelerate to an average of 6.8%.

However, over the remainder of the forecast horizon, economic growth is expected to decline to an average of 6.5% per year.

Despite the pandemic and a deep recession, within the next decade, 2030, Bangladesh will achieve the 28th position by overcoming Malaysia, Israel and even the oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

The previous report of CEBR showed Bangladesh will overtake heavyweights such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Denmark and Norway. This forecast for 2030 is also the same in this recent report.

Neighboring India will become the 5th largest economy in 2025, the 3rd largest by 2030. While China, currently the second-largest economy, will overtake the United States to become the world's biggest economy in 2030. That will be due to the contrasting recoveries of the two countries from the pandemic, the think tank says.

Japan would remain the world's 3rd biggest economy, in dollar terms, until the early 2030s when it would be overtaken by India, pushing Germany down from fourth to fifth.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Bangladesh's economy was able to escape a contraction in 2020. The rate of GDP growth in Bangladesh is anticipated to have dipped to 3.8% in 2020. This compares to 8.2% GDP growth recorded in 2019, said the report.

It also mentioned that the government debt as a share of GDP rose to 39.6% in 2020, which remains low. Looking back, it was 35.8% of GDP in 2019.

It also said the government of Bangladesh operated a fiscal deficit of 6.8% in 2020, facilitated in part by the low debt to GDP ratio.

The UK-based think tank, the CEBR, published The World Economic League Table 2021 on 26 December, with forecasts for 193 countries to 2035.

Since its first publication in 2009, the CEBR'S World Economic League Table (known as the WELT) has established itself as the go-to measure of the comparative economic success of different countries.