Bangladesh has good prospects despite some disturbing signs in the economy, said the International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh (ICCB), calling on the government to generate own resources to ensure sustainable growth.

“In line with Asian economies, Bangladeshs performance has so far been quite resilient to global economic meltdown, achieving 6.7 percent GDP (growth) in FY11. Its macroeconomic performance was better than expected and regionally its performance

had been one of the best,” said the chamber in its editorial of the current new bulletin released yesterday.

According to the just unveiled sixth Five-Year Plan, Bangladesh plans to attain higher than 7 percent GDP, limit inflation within 7 percent, create 10 million new jobs and bring down poverty to 22 percent from present 31.5 percent during the plan execution period till 2015.

“However, the recent economic indicators of Bangladesh are of concern as it may not be able to achieve 7 percent GDP growth. The balance of payments situation has deteriorated markedly in recent months.”

“The twin effects of surging import payments for fuel, goods and services and slowdown of remittance inflows in recent months have more than offset the large gain in export growth, contributing to a rapid deterioration of BoP situation and outlook.”

“Besides, the tension in the money market has contributed to a significant depreciation of the exchange rate of taka against the dollar and other major currencies by about 16 percent during last few months,” said the local representative of the worlds trade body.

The ICCB said the governments bank borrowing has already reached Tk 213.21 billion during the first five months, exceeding its target of Tk 189.57 billion for current FY12. On the other hand, banks have fallen into liquidity crisis for private sector investment. Commercial banks are borrowing money from other banks at a high interest rate to meet fund requirement.

“Despite some disturbing signs as indicate above, Bangladesh still holds a much better prospect,” it said.

Quoting a study conducted by McKinsey & Company and sponsored by the German-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce, the chamber said Bangladeshs RMG exports would double by 2015 and nearly triple in next 10 years as well as creating employment opportunities for additional 3.5 million workers by 2020.

According to industry experts, the target can easily be achieved by exploring new markets in growing Asia, Latin America and Africa. Besides, there are bright prospects of increased export earnings from pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, leather goods, jute etc and also increased manpower export, said the editorial.

On the global economy, the ICCB said the world economy is indicating another slowdown due to dragging European debt crisis. The European economy is expected to face the sharpest contraction in the history of EU.

According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), the current GDP projects a slower growth for the next six years from 2011 to 2016 after a sharp fall in growth that EU is experiencing since 2007.

However, emerging Asia-s recovery and growth in the past three years has been exceptional, said ICCB.

“We apprehend international financial institutions and development partners including the World Bank, IMF and ADB may not be able dole out credits and grants due to ongoing economic crisis of the developed world. Therefore, appropriate policy measures and timely implementation of those are needed to generate enough own resources for sustainable growth including increased foreign currency reserve,” the chamber said.