Despite sustained domestic and international
efforts to improve economic and demographic prospects, Bangladesh
remains one of the world's poorest, most densely populated, and least
developed nations. The economy is largely agricultural, with the
cultivation of rice the single most important activity in the economy.
Major impediments to growth include frequent cyclones and floods, the
inefficiency of state-owned enterprises, a rapidly growing labor force
that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, delays in exploiting energy
resources (natural gas), inadequate power supplies, and slow
implementation of economic reforms. Prime Minister Sheikh HASINA
Wajed's Awami League government has made some headway improving the
climate for foreign investors and liberalizing the capital markets;
for example, it has negotiated with foreign firms for oil and gas
exploration, better countrywide distribution of cooking gas, and the
construction of natural gas pipelines and power plants. Progress on
other economic reforms has been halting because of opposition from the
bureaucracy, public sector unions, and other vested interest groups.
The especially severe floods of 1998 increased the country's reliance
on large-scale international aid. So far the East Asian financial
crisis has not had major impact on the economy.

purchasing power parity - $187 billion (1999 est.)

5.2% (1999 est.)

purchasing power parity - $1,470 (1999 est.)

agriculture: 30%
industry: 17%
services: 53% (1999 est.)

35.6% (FY95/96 est.)

lowest 10%: 4.1%
highest 10%: 23.7% (1992)

9% (FY98/99 est.)

56 million (1995-96)
note: extensive export of labor to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Oman,
Qatar, Malaysia, and Singapore

agriculture 63%, services 26%, industry
11% (FY95/96)

35.2% (1996)

revenues: $4.3 billion
expenditures: $6.5 billion, including capital expenditures of $NA
(1997)

cotton textiles, jute, garments, tea processing, paper
newsprint, cement, chemical fertilizer, light engineering, sugar

2.5% (1997 est.)

12.5 billion kWh (1999 est.)

fossil fuel: 98%
hydro: 2%
nuclear: 0%
other: 0% (1999)

11.039 billion kWh (1998)

0 kWh (1999)

0 kWh (1999)

rice, jute, tea, wheat, sugarcane, potatoes;
beef, milk, poultry, tobacco, pulses, oilseeds, spices, fruit

$5.1 billion (1998)

garments, jute and jute goods, leather, frozen
fish and seafood

US 33%, Germany 10%, UK 9%, France 6%, Italy 5%
(1997)

$8.01 billion (1998)

machinery and equipment, chemicals, iron and
steel, textiles, raw cotton, food, crude oil and petroleum products,
cement

India 12%, China 9%, Japan 7%, Hong Kong 6%, South
Korea 6% (1997)

$16.5 billion (1998)

$1.475 billion (FY96/97)

1 taka (Tk) = 100 poisha

taka (Tk) per US$1 - 51.000 (January 2000), 49.085
(1999), 46.906 (1998), 43.892 (1997), 41.794 (1996), 40.278 (1995)

1 July - 30 June