A major correction in miscalculated export data is now set to down-rate Bangladesh's gross national income and per-capita GNI in a major upset.
Bangladesh Bank sources Wednesday told The Financial Express that a committee formed to investigate EPB data found a mismatch of around US$12 billion in export receivables.
Consequently, Bangladesh's balance of payments or BOP and its major components reversed from previous months
One major component of the balance-current account-turned deeply deficit. Another component called financial account turned surplus which so far been hugely deficit.
Such BoP situation was published Thursday in a Financial Express front-page report.
Now, a domino effect necessitates re-estimating another macro-indicator, gross national product or income, in a major do-over-again national-level exercise.
Export earning is a major component of the GNP or GNI, as this happens to involve the single-largest manufacturing sector and forex-earner for the country.
Once export earnings drop, subsequently GNP/GNI drops, too.
Dr Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute or PRI, told the Financial Express that the per-capita GNI must be reduced now.
"Definitely both GNP and GNI will drop significantly as a result of corrected export earnings data," says the economist.
He notes that this is a major issue as all previous data relating to balance of payments, GNP "seem to be false".
Dr Mansur suggests that this should be investigated who and why the EPB prepared such inflated data.
In the meantime, the GNI might have stood at US$ 477697 million at the end of June 30, 2024, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics or BBS.
The per-capita national income may stand at $2784 in FY 2024, says the national statistical bureau.
The GNI or GNP was recorded at $469556 million in FY23. The per-capita GNI was recorded at $2749.
In its calculation the BBS assumed the exchange rate between taka and dollar Tk 109.97.
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