The Bangladesh economy likely grew 5.38 percent in the year ending June 2005, faster than expected after widespread and destructive floods caused billions of dollars in damages last year, officials said Sunday. Floods in August and September 2004 in the low-lying delta nation inundated more than 38 percent of the land and left around 700 people dead, also causing crop and infrastructure damage worth 2.2 billion dollars.
The disaster had prompted multilateral lending agencies to predict a growth rate of around five percent for South Asia's third largest economy.
However, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said a rebound in exports and impressive manufacturing and service sector growth since the floods offset the adverse impact.
The bureau said exports for the year were expected to rise 10 percent with manufacturing output seen up 8.43 percent and service sector growth expected to rise 6.63 percent, the deputy director of the statistics bureau, Atish Kumar Ghosh, said.
"Most of the key sectors other than agriculture have witnessed very good growth this year," Ghosh said, adding that farm output fell because of the floods.
The bureau released the growth estimate ahead of the June 9 budget proposals of the government for the next fiscal year starting July 1.
The bureau also revised upward gross domestic product growth for the year ended June 30, 2004 to 6.27 percent from an earlier 5.52 percent, citing higher imports than previously reported.
The revised growth figure was the highest in the last 15 years, Ghosh said.
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