President of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh Mahbubur Rahman has said country’s economy experienced a mixed trend in the calendar year 2006 due to political instability. ‘The economic indicators showed a sign of slowdown during the last quarter of 2006,’ he said this while presenting a report of the executive board of ICCB at its annual council-2006 held at the DCCI auditorium on Saturday.

He pointed, ‘Despite all odds end of the year, export earnings grew significantly by 25.80 per cent in 2006, imports 19.8 per cent and remittance from non-resident Bangladeshis by 29 per cent — all these resulted in turning the current account balance to a significant surplus of 579 million.’The report mentioned the country has experienced a political stalemate at the end of 2006, which ultimately led to the declaration of state of emergency, recalling that business leaders took initiative for bringing the main stream parties into dialogue, however, unfortunately it did not bring any tangible results.’

‘In the coming days inflation will be a major challenge for the Bangladesh economy as rate of inflation is critical for accelerated economic growth and poverty reduction,’ the ICC-B report predicted, marking the national output growth was likely to slowdown in 2007 due to the, anticipated slower GDP growth in FY07.

The report said, continuous high global oil prices that had heightened pressure on the country’s balance of payment and threatened fiscal and monetary stability underscore the need for further rationalization of domestically administered prices of petroleum products. ICC-B suggested that a pricing system providing for automatic adjustment of domestic fuel prices to international market situation be adopted.

The ICC-B council expected that the present government would take care about infrastructural inadequacies, power shortage, port operations, modernisation of National Board of Revenue, investment in basic industries and development of capital market.