Bangladesh: Staff Report for the 2021 Article IV Consultation— Informational Annex
Author: International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Publication Date:
07 Mar 2022
eISBN:
9798400201943
Language:
English
Keywords:
liability positions vis-à-vis nonresident; GDP time series; Bangladesh capacity development; GDP estimate; positions vis-à-vis nonresident; Government finance statistics; External sector statistics; Financial soundness indicators; Financial statistics
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BANGLADESH

Abstract

BANGLADESH

Title Page

BANGLADESH

STAFF REPORT FOR THE 2021 ARTICLE IV CONSULTATION— INFORMATIONAL ANNEX

February 15, 2022

Prepared By

Asia and Pacific Department (In consultation with other departments)

Contents

  • FUND RELATIONS

  • RELATIONS WITH OTHER INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

  • STATISTICAL ISSUES

Fund Relations

(As of December 31, 2021)

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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Emergency assistant may include ENDA, EPCA, and RFI.

Latest Financial Commitments

Arrangements:

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Extended Credit Facility (ECF), formerly PRGF.

Outright Loans1:

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Undrawn outright disbursements (RFI and RCF) expire automatically 60 days following the date of commitment, i.e., Board approval date.

Projected Payments to the Fund2

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

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

Article IV Consultation

The previous Article IV consultation was concluded on September 9, 2019 (IMF Country Report No. 19/299).

Safeguards Assessment

  • A virtual safeguard assessment mission was conducted in October 2021 in connection with the 2020 RCF/RFI disbursements. The 2021 update safeguards assessment found that the BB had made limited progress in addressing some of recommendations from the 2011 assessment. In particular, the BB needs to address capacity constraints in the internal audit and accounting functions and improve the quality of its financial statements and external audits. There have been no major changes to the central bank law since the 2011 assessment and legal reforms remain critical to strengthen the BB’s autonomy and governance arrangements. In addition, the BB needs to address elevated risks in currency operations and IT environment, develop a strategy to phase out its involvement in non-core central banking activities, and establish sound procedures for the compilation and reporting of official reserve assets.

Exchange Arrangement

  • The de jure exchange rate regime is a float. Effective February 3, 2020, the exchange rate has stabilized within a 2percent band against the US dollar. Accordingly, the de facto exchange rate arrangement was reclassified to stabilized from crawl-like, effective February 3, 2020.

  • 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. Jayendu De is the current Resident Representative since November 2020.

Bangladesh Capacity Development, August 2019–November 2021

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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 October 2021)

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 December 2021. Preliminary annual GDP estimates are now published four, rather than ten, months after the reference period. The BBS has been provided with technical assistance on GDP rebasing and customized training on development of QGDP series and construct a statistical business register.

3. Price Statistics. A CPI series with base year 2005/06 was introduced in July 2012. These weights are no longer representative of current consumer expenditures in Bangladesh and should be updated. The IMF has been providing technical assistance to support updates to the CPI weights and basket based on the results of the 2015/16 Household Income and Expenditure Survey, but these updated data are not yet disseminated. The producer price index is compiled for manufacturing only and weights are based on the 2005/2006 Survey of Manufacturing Industries• These weights should be updated based on the results of the 2019 Survey of Manufacturing Industries. The Bangladesh Bank compiles an experimental residential property price index for Dhaka for internal analysis only. Recent IMF technical assistance was provided to expand data collection and improve compilation methods.

4. Government Finance Statistics. The Government of Bangladesh has made significant progress developing their integrated budgeting and accounting system++ (IBAS), which includes GFS classified in line with the latest international standard, the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM 2014). They have submitted, to the IMF’s Statistics Department, annual GFS budgetary central government (BCG) data up to financial year (FY) 2018/19, and are finalizing FY2019/20 data. Using IBAS they intend, starting in FY 2020/21, delivering estimates of quarterly BCG GFS. Areas of improvement remain that no stock asset data is reported and that the coverage of extrabudgetary and local government units outside central government is inadequate. 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. The monetary and financial statistics technical assistance mission in September 2019 made several recommendations for the compilation of OFCs data to expand the institutional coverage of MFS for Bangladesh. The BB, in coordination with STA, is working on the implementation of the mission’s recommendations. Bangladesh reports data on several series and indicators of the Financial Access Survey (FAS), including mobile money and the two indicators (commercial bank branches per 100,000 adults and ATMs per 100,000 adults) 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. The frequency of financial soundness indicators (FSIs) that the BB reports has improved from semi-annual to quarterly frequency starting from the first quarter of 2019.

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 October 22, 2021)

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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.

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Bangladesh: 2021 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 2022: Issue 071
Publisher:
International Monetary Fund
ISBN:
9798400201943
ISSN:
1934-7685
Pages:
107
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400201943.002