BBS to publish quarterly GDP data from 2024

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is taking necessary preparations to publish quarterly reports on the country's gross domestic product (GDP) from the next year.

The state statistics agency took the decision to meet one of the conditions of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) $4.7 billion loan for Bangladesh.

In addition, the BBS has also completed the compilation of provisional and final data on the country's GDP for 50 years since independence.

Md Matiar Rahman, director general of the BBS, shared the information after a meeting with an IMF delegation in Dhaka today.

He said the finance department asked the BBS to do three works -- publish hard and soft copies of 50 years' GDP data, new method of consumer price index and public quarterly GDP report.

The BBS is working as per the instructions of the finance division, Rahman said.

"We have also informed the IMF team about updating our Consumer Price Index (CPI). We have included 722 food and non-food items under 12 categories while it was 412 items under eight categories."

Now, 95 per cent of the countries across the world follow this method as intake of food items has increased in Bangladesh, which was not incorporated in the previous method, he said.

"We will publish the CPI report with the updated list from April while the target was to publish it from July."