Bangladesh’s GDP growth halves to 2.2% in Jan-Mar as industry contracts

Bangladesh's economy grew by 2.22 percent in the January-March quarter of fiscal year 2025-26, almost half the rate recorded in the same period a year earlier, as the industrial sector contracted, according to provisional data published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

The economy grew by 4.53 percent in the third quarter of FY25, and the latest GDP growth figure is the lowest since the fourth quarter of FY25.

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The BBS said industrial output, the country's main growth engine, declined by 0.28 percent during the January-March period of FY26, reversing the expansion recorded a year earlier.

Agriculture also lost momentum, with growth easing to 1.74 percent from 4.61 percent in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year. Growth in the services sector, which accounts for more than half of GDP, slowed markedly to 3.52 percent from 7.32 percent a year earlier, reflecting broad-based weakness across the economy.

The BBS earlier published a provisional estimate of the country's economic growth at 4.14 percent for FY26, up from 3.49 percent in the previous fiscal year.