Bangladesh: Staff Report for the 2019 Article IV Consultation—Informational Annex
Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Publication Date:
18 Sep 2019
eISBN:
9781513514239
Language:
English
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; debt; authority; inflation development; flow data; financial asset; authorities' effort; government of Bangladesh; liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; External sector statistics; Government finance statistics; Financial soundness indicators
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2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Bangladesh

Abstract

2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Bangladesh

Fund Relations

(As of June 30, 2019)

Membership Status

Joined August 17, 1972; accepted the obligations under Article VIII, Sections 2, 3, and 4 on April 11, 1994.

General Resources Account

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SDR Department

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Outstanding Purchases and Loans

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Latest Financial Arrangements

(In millions of SDRs)

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Projected Payments to the Fund2

(In millions of SDRs (based on existing use of resources and present holding of SDRs))

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Article IV Consultation

The previous Article IV consultation was concluded on May 30, 2018 (IMF Country Report No. 18/158).

Safeguards Assessment

  • A safeguards assessment of Bangladesh Bank (BB) was concluded in July 2011. Since then, BB has implemented a number of recommendations and strengthened audit committee oversight. BB’s autonomy continues to be undermined, as the present legal framework allows for considerable government influence over bank operations. Progress in establishing effective safeguards in key areas needs to be supported by effective oversight and continued capacity building.

Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism

  • Bangladesh has been strengthening its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing systems in line with recommendations from the assessment of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG). The assessment is a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of Bangladesh’s AML/CFT system and its level of compliance with the FATF Recommendations. The report was formally adopted at the APG Annual Meeting in September 2016. The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit has recently issued circulars related to information sharing among financial institutions and within financial institutions, published guidance notes on best practices. Continued effort includes work on strengthening risk-based supervision, improving oversight of wire transfers, establishing a clear definition of beneficial ownership, and improving access to it.

Exchange Arrangement

  • The de jure exchange rate regime is a float. Effective January 10, 2017, the de facto exchange rate arrangement was reclassified from a stabilized to crawl-like arrangement.

  • Bangladesh is an Article VIII member and maintains one restriction subject to Fund approval under Article VIII, Section 2(a) on the convertibility and transferability of proceeds of current international transactions in nonresident taka accounts.

Resident Representative

The resident representative office was established in 1972. Mr. Ragnar Gudmundsson is the current Resident Representative since November 2017.

Bangladesh Capacity Development, May 2018–July 2019

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Relations with Other International Financial Institutions

Information on the activities of other IFIs in Bangladesh can be found at:

https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/bangladesh

https://www.adb.org/countries/bangladesh/main

Statistical Issues

(As of July 2019)

Assessment of Data Adequacy for Surveillance

1. General. Data provision has some shortcomings, but is broadly adequate for surveillance. The most affected areas are national accounts, fiscal, and external sector statistics.

2. National Accounts. Bangladesh’s annual GDP time series has a base year of 2005/06 based on a benchmark compiled and published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in 2013. Two shortcomings include: (a) value added of residential dwelling construction is dependent upon data collected in a 1980/81 survey; and (b) the absence of a comprehensive producer price index reduces the quality of estimates of price change used to compile industry value added. A revision of the entire GDP time series based on the new 2015/16 benchmark is expected to be published in June 2020. Final annual GDP estimates are now published four, rather than ten, months after the reference period. The BBS has been provided with technical assistance to use value-added tax data to compile quarterly estimates of GDP and construct a statistical business register.

3. Price Statistics. A new CPI series with base year 2005/06 was introduced in July 2012 and improved coverage. However, data users such as Bangladesh Bank (BB) have raised concern about the reliability of the CPI data. The CPI series is currently undergoing further improvements, including incorporating the results of the recent household survey and VAT data, and using the Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose (COICOP). The IMF has been providing technical assistance TA in these areas. The producer price index is compiled for manufacturing only and weights are based on the 2005/2006 Survey of Manufacturing Industries.

4. Government Finance Statistics. Government of Bangladesh has implemented a new Budget and Accounting Classification System (BACS) in FY19 to follow the latest international standard, the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM 2014) and integrate the accounting and reporting systems for the budgetary central government. Bangladesh currently reports budgetary central government flow data, including COFOG data, for the annual GFS database, with the latest year available 2016. No stock data is reported. The coverage of extrabudgetary and local government units outside central government is inadequate and is an area for future attention. BB provides data to the World Bank-IMF Quarterly Public Sector Debt Statistics database.

5. Monetary and Financial Statistics. BB compiles monetary data using the standardized report forms (SRFs) framework. The SRFs are reported electronically to the IMF on a regular basis. As a result, a consistent time series based on SRF data is available from December 2001. A survey of Other Financial Corporations (OFCs) is not yet available. BB has accepted IMF’s proposed technical assistance mission to assist in developing a framework to compile the SRF 4SR for OFCs. Bangladesh reports data on several series and indicators of the Financial Access Survey (FAS), including mobile money and the two indicators adopted by the UN to monitor Target 8.10 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

6. Financial Soundness Indicators. Bangladesh reports all 12 core and 8 encouraged Financial Soundness Indicators (FSIs) for deposit takers and two FSIs for real estate markets for posting on the FSI website. However, FSIs are reported with semi-annual frequency and long lag.

7. External Sector Statistics (ESS). Bangladesh compiles a comprehensive array of ESS in line with BPM6. The external statistical framework includes: (a) quarterly balance of payments (BOP) and International Investment Position (IIP) data; (b) the IMF’s coordinated portfolio investment survey; (c) the IMF’s coordinated direct investment survey; and (d); quarterly time series for external debt statistics (EDS) that have been published by BB and reflect improved coverage of indicators, as well as of periodicity and dissemination. The most recent TA mission on ESS found that: (i) the reconciliation between the IIP, EDS and BOP should be enhanced. More attention should also be given to the reconciliation of specific data sets with bilateral data from counterpart countries, and (ii) Inconsistencies between international trade statistics disseminated by the BB in the compilation of the BOP and BBS in the calculation of the national accounts to be addressed by a high-level committee.

8. Data Standards and Quality. Bangladesh participated in the General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) in March 2001, which was superseded by the enhanced GDDS (e-GDDS) in 2015 with a focus on data dissemination to support transparency and surveillance. In implementing the e-GDDS, Bangladesh began publishing in October 2017 a set of macroeconomic data in both human-and machine-readable (SDMX) formats. This marks a major milestone in Bangladesh’s statistical development and facilitates the authorities’ efforts to achieve their goal of subscribing to the Special Data Dissemination Standard, a higher tier of the IMF’s data dissemination standards.

Bangladesh: Table of Common Indicators Required for Surveillance

(As of July 12, 2019)

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Daily (D); weekly (W); monthly (M); quarterly (Q); annually (A); irregular (I); not available (NA).

Includes reserve assets pledged or otherwise encumbered as well as net derivative positions.

Both market-based and officially determined, including discount rates, money market rates, and rates on treasury bills, notes, and bonds.

Foreign, domestic bank, and domestic nonbank financing.

The general government consists of the central government (budgetary funds, extra-budgetary funds, and social security funds) and state and local governments. Data for the general government are currently not being compiled due to capacity limitations.

Currency and/or maturity composition may not be available for the most recent data.

Includes external gross financial asset and liability positions vis-à-vis nonresidents.

1

Extended Credit Facility (ECF), formerly PRGF.

2

When a member has overdue financial obligations outstanding for more than three months, the amount of such arrears will be shown in this section.

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Bangladesh: 2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Bangladesh
Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Volume/Issue:
Volume 2019: Issue 299
Publisher:
International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
9781513514239
ISSN:
1934-7685
Pages:
75
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5089/9781513514239.002