Economy of Bangladesh

Despite political agitation early in 2015 that adversely affected transport services, exports, and private investment, growth in Bangladesh held up well because of brisk domestic demand, boosted by higher worker remittances, private sector wages, and public investment. Inflation moderated in FY2015 much as forecast in ADO 2015 from 7.4% a year earlier, reflecting large public stocks of food grains, normal weather, a supportive monetary policy, and lower global food and commodity prices that a steady exchange rate allowed to passed through.
The provisional estimate for Bangladesh's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the financial year (FY) 2015 (ended 30 June 2015) is higher than the 6.1% recorded in FY2014 and projected in the Asian Development Outlook 2015. The GDP growth forecast for FY2016 is revised somewhat higher still with the expectation that exports will grow with continued economic recovery in the US and the euro area, strong expansion in remittances will boost consumption demand, private and public investment will pick up as the business climate improves under a stabilising political situation, and spending will increase under the annual development program. Despite considerable progress in poverty reduction - from 48.8% to 31.5% between 2000 and 2010 - the incidence of poverty in Bangladesh remains high, with a third of the population considered poor and 17.6% extremely poor.
Agriculture and labor-intensive manufacturing remain the 2 major pillars of the Bangladeshi national economy. Historically, a tropical climate and warm temperatures throughout the year made it possible to grow 2 or 3 crops of rice each year, although floods and cyclones regularly damaged crop yield. Flourishing trade, manufacturing-traditionally in light manufacturing and agricultural processing-along with the wealth of the region's nobility, attracted English, French, and Dutch traders. The British East India Company had slowly but steadily advanced into the region in the 17th and 18th centuries, acquiring trade privileges from the Mogul emperors and exploiting rivalries between local rulers, and gradually established control over the trade between India and Europe. The company and its often corrupt administration had greatly benefited from the trade between India and Europe. The British East India Company established control over administration of the Bengal province in 1765. However, in 1858 the company was abolished, and the British crown assumed direct control over British India, in response to the local uprising of 1857 to 1858 and to growing evidence of the company's inefficiency.
Throughout the colonial era, East Bengal (the territory of modern Bangladesh) received very limited investments in its industrial sector or toward development of its transportation system, and largely relied on the production and export of its agricultural goods, including jute, rice, and tea. The British colonial rule in India was accompanied by uprisings, greater polarisation of society, and a decline in the traditional values and institutions of the society; nevertheless, it included India in the global trade of the early capitalist era and introduced the British legal and political systems and the technological innovations of that era.