DOT Desk
The country incurred huge economic losses because of political violence carried out by BNP and Jamaat before and after the 10th parliamentary polls held on January 5 in 2014, reports The Daily Sun.
The month-long violent street protests and shutdowns hampered industrial production, service and farm sectors and hard hit public and private investment, denting the country’s growth expectations.
In an immediate assessment after the polls, independent think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) estimated the financial loss in four sectors at Tk 49,018 crore, which was 4.7 percent of the previous fiscal’s GDP.
The land transport (rail and road) sector incurred the highest loss of Tk 16,689 crore, followed by Tk 15,829 crore incurred by agriculture and agro-based industries, Tk 13,750 crore by clothing and textiles sector and Tk 2,750 crore by tourism sector.
BNP and Jamaat went for violent street protests and indefinite strikes to press for their demand for holding polls under a neutral caretaker government and stopping war crimes trial.
A World Bank analysis shows that the immediate loss of Bangladesh economy was $1.4 billion due to the poll-related political turmoil ahead of the election.
The service sector bore the brunt of violence as it suffered 86 percent losses. The industrial sector suffered a loss of 11 percent while the farming sector was the least affected with 3 percent loss, according to the WB.
Compiling loss estimates before and after the election, the global lender in its Bangladesh Update 2015 said Bangladesh economy lost $2.2 billion or around 1 percent of its GDP as a result of 62 days of political unrest.
As political unrest continued after the polls, major sectors incurred a loss of Tk 4,900 crore or 0.55 percent of GDP of fiscal year 2015 from January to mid-March this year, CPD said in April 2015.
As a result, the government had to drastically cut its ambitious growth projection for FY13-14 to 6.5 percent from 7.2 percent because of the long spell of political unrest.
And finally, Bangladesh attained a 6.12 percent growth after ADP implementation faced a severe setback even though it was higher than the previous fiscal growth of 6.01 percent but much lower than previous two fiscal years’ growth of 6.46 percent and 6.52 percent.
Because of political violence and arson attacks in 2013, RMG sector had to bear air shipment bills worth Tk 5,000 crore and offer discounts worth Tk 9,000 crore, the BGMEA said then.
In the form of penalty for delayed shipment, the exporters saw a price cut by $4.65 million as orders worth $6.6 million were delayed.
Losses caused by vandalism and arson attacks were worth $1.9 million, according to the BGMEA.
Real production in the garment sector is valued at Tk 430 crore a day. So, if half a day of production is hampered, output worth Tk 215 crore is damaged, according to the BGMEA.
Apparel makers or their representatives had to travel to Hong Kong, China, India, Thailand and European nations, spending thousands of dollars to attend the meetings that were initially planned in Dhaka.
The agriculture sector was vulnerable during political turmoil as the whole supply chain was disrupted.
The media reported that producers of agricultural commodities had to give away their commodities at a minimal price as those were perishable and could not be transported to cities regularly.
Milk producers literally threw milk on the streets out of frustration as they could not fetch the right price.
Disruption of the supply chain pushed prices up in cities. Food inflation went up to 9 percent in December 2013 as opposed to 5.28 percent in December 2012.