Different industries in our country are now caught in the vortex of economic turmoil. As a result, businesses are on the verge of incurring huge loss along with snowball impacts on the overall economy. According to a piece of news published in our daily yesterday, businesses (manufacturing industry to be more specific) are suffocating owing to a storm created by economic woes.
A number of factors are at play behind such a declining trend. Factory owners as well as economists have put the blame on dollar crisis, high inflation rate, volatile currency market and scarcity of loans. Especially the manufacturing industry is facing twin troubles due to gas and electricity supply crunch. In general, the private sector is in a tight spot. If it continues this way, it could have drastic impacts on the growth of our economy along with far-reaching implications for the ordinary citizens.

If the production gets hampered, it will affect the market directly putting extra strain on the livelihood of the masses. Moreover, experts opine that if the industries keep suffering, it will seriously impact the country’s GDP growth. The World Bank has forecasted that Bangladesh will experience a subdued GDP growth in FY24. The volatile condition in the industries will exacerbate the situation further.
What is more concerning is that such a restless situation will also result in a decline in the employment rate. The unemployment rate among the educated youths is already quite high in our country. Instability will push the future of more youths into uncertainty. Moreover, as exports are reducing at an alarming rate, it will contribute to rising price of commodities and essentials. All these point to a single outcome – intolerable pressures on cross-sections of people and the economy.

In this connection, we concur with the economists that the central bank’s arbitrariness regarding policies is to blame in part for this worrisome situation. To keep the industries afloat, multilateral assistance must be made available. Moreover, the central bank and other policymakers seriously need to get back to the drawing board and start afresh taking into account the suggestions of the experts so that they can come up with effective solutions to address the existing problems. Because if we keep repeating our mistakes, the economic base of our country will get shaken to the core. The government should act now to mitigate the looming crisis.