Nigeria, an emerging African economy, shares many similar features with Bangladesh in population size, economic structure and the scale of foreign trade. Yet the two diverge on gross domestic product. Nigeria’s 240 million people generate a GDP of $285 billion. Bangladesh on the other hand claims a GDP of $456 billion.
Pakistan, with roughly 255 million people, offers another point of comparison. Its GDP stands at $340 billion, though the two countries conduct a similar volume of foreign trade. Pakistan also outstrips Bangladesh in per capita electricity consumption.
Research bodies and economists say Bangladesh’s ousted Awami League government, during its nearly a decade and a half in power, presented false or exaggerated statistics for GDP and other economic indicators. Its main motive: inflating the size of GDP to show progress on development and graduating from the least-developed country status. That government also understated inflation. The exaggerated GDP merely generated extra borrowing benefits for the state.
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics’ final calculation puts the country’s GDP at $456 billion for the 2024–25 fiscal year. Over the same period, the government borrowed more than BDT 21.44 trillion (about $176 billion at BDT 122 per dollar). That gives a debt-to-GDP ratio of 38.61 percent. This tally excludes borrowing by public-sector companies. Adding those loans pushes the total above BDT 23.5 trillion.
Documents from domestic and foreign sources, along with economists and experts, put Bangladesh’s real GDP on a par with Pakistan and Nigeria. That would place the country’s output between $300 billion and $350 billion. Over the past decade and a half, however, the government inflated the figure by at least $100 billion above the true level.
After the July uprising toppled Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, the subsequent interim government had set up a white paper committee. Its report also flagged false data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. At the time, interim leader Dr Muhammad Yunus repeatedly raised the issue of inflated GDP on the world stage and called for correcting the false figures. Yet no reform action ultimately materialised.
Correcting the GDP calculation now could push the debt-to-GDP ratio above 50 percent. That would sharply reduce the government’s borrowing capacity. Foreign institutions would also be unwilling to extend significant further lending to the state.
The BBS produced exaggerated GDP statistics and fabricated data and surveys for basic economic indicators throughout the same 15-year period of the AL government. The interim government that followed formed an independent task force to restructure the agency. Last September, the task force submitted a report recommending, among other measures, changing the BBS’s name. Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman, executive chairman of the private research organisation PPRC, led the task force. Its members included Dr Fahmida Khatun, executive director of another private research body, CPD.
Asked about the BBS reform recommendations, including on overstated GDP statistics, Fahmida Khatun told Bonik Barta: “We have protested the inflated figures for GDP size and growth for years. The BBS’s inflation data also contains inconsistencies. We identified weaknesses in the agency’s data sources and survey methods and submitted recommendations to the government.”
Asked whether she sees any change at the BBS based on the task force’s proposals, she said: “The BBS’s March inflation figure lacked credibility. The war in Iran and the wider Middle East conflict pushed up prices. People also face more harassment and higher costs when obtaining services. Yet the BBS reported falling inflation. So why would the public trust the agency’s data?”
Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, the current prime minister’s adviser on finance and planning, has also highlighted past GDP inflation. Speaking at an NBR exchange meeting on March 29, he said: “Past governments inflated GDP growth rates or total GDP for political purposes. We’ve already started reforming those. Through the white paper committee, you have learned how data manipulation occurred in every sector. So when we obtain the true GDP size, the tax-to-GDP ratio will also become realistic.”
Back in 2022, the World Bank published a report titled “Bangladesh Country Economic Memorandum: Change of Fabric”. It analysed statistics from 130 countries over three decades. The report found that from 2009 to 2019, though Bangladesh’s official average growth rate stood at 7 percent, the real rate was 4.2 percent. The government inflated average growth by 2.8 percentage points across that decade.
The World Bank came under intense pressure after publishing the report. Dr Zahid Hussain, then chief economist at the bank’s Dhaka office, who contributed to the study, told Bonik Barta: “From 2009 to 2019, growth was inflated by an average of 2.8 percentage points. Excluding that extra growth from a $460 billion GDP brings the true size at $322 billion. We were never really the fastest-growing economy.”
He added: “From my experience, the GDP figures were exaggerated to craft a development narrative. The government promoted the idea that development was raising per capita income. While growth was overstated, inflation was understated. That now makes it very difficult to derive the true GDP size.”
On February 1 2025, Bonik Barta published a report headlined “GDP size may be exaggerated by $100 billion”. It said uncovering the real figure would significantly alter key economic indicators. For example, if Bangladesh’s GDP for FY 2023–24 stood at $350 billion, the external debt-to-GDP ratio would rise to 29.65 percent against the 22.6 percent reported at that time. The total debt ratio would climb from 36.30 percent to 44.57 percent (total domestic and foreign debt at the end of 2023–24 was about $156 billion). Per capita GDP would fall from the official $2,675 to roughly $2,040.
According to the World Bank, Bangladesh lags contemporary rival economies on investment, exports, human capital, foreign investment and the business environment. Had the economy expanded as claimed, it would not trail so far on these metrics. Even satellite image analysis of light emissions finds no evidence of economic expansion.
City Bank Capital Resources has published a fresh calculation of Bangladesh’s true GDP, comparing electricity consumption against economic output. In a report titled “Macro Economic Outlook 2025”, it estimates real GDP for FY 2023–24 at roughly $300 billion.
The institution questions the GDP statistics released under the Awami League government. It asks how Bangladesh could show output 50–60 percent higher than India, Pakistan or China relative to electricity use. Such discrepancies suggest that a revaluation of GDP is needed. The official debt-to-GDP ratio for 2023–24 stood just above 36 percent. A restated GDP would push that figure to 55 percent, assuming a $300 billion size.
Despite its claimed GDP lead, Bangladesh trails Nigeria and Pakistan on FDI stock, the tax-to-GDP ratio and market capitalisation relative to GDP. The country’s FDI stock stands at $19.5 billion, compared with over $28 billion for Pakistan and $75 billion for Nigeria. Its tax-to-GDP ratio is the lowest at 6.73 percent. Nigeria’s is 13.5 percent; Pakistan’s 10.5 percent. Bangladesh’s market-cap-to-GDP ratio is 8.19 percent, against 33 percent in Nigeria and 19.7 percent in Pakistan. Any genuine GDP expansion would normally lift such indicators.
Over the past decade and a half, the government has benefited from inflated GDP size and growth figures when borrowing from domestic and foreign sources. According to finance ministry data, total government debt from all sources in FY 2009–10 stood at BDT 2.77 trillion. Foreign borrowing accounted for BDT 1.61 trillion of that; domestic sources supplied the remaining BDT 1.15 trillion, drawn from banks, savings certificates and other instruments. That debt has now ballooned to roughly BDT 23.5 trillion.
As of December last year, total government debt from domestic and foreign sources stood at about BDT 23.5 trillion. Banks and other domestic sources accounted for BDT 10.84 trillion of that; foreign sources supplied the rest. According to Bangladesh Bank, the government’s foreign debt stock reached $93.46 billion at the end of December last year.
Borrowing continued under the now-dissolved interim government. The current 2025–26 budget targets BDT 1.25 trillion in loans from the banking and financial sector, of which BDT 1.04 trillion from banks and BDT 210 billion from non-bank financial institutions. In the first half (July-December) of this fiscal year, the government has already borrowed BDT 622.46 billion from banks and financial entities. Banks alone supplied BDT 533.85 billion of that. Over the same period last year, the government borrowed just BDT 67.4 billion from banks. Including all domestic sources, it borrowed BDT 314.28 billion in the first half of the previous fiscal year. This year’s domestic borrowing in the same period has more than doubled.
Bangladesh Bank data show that as of end of January 2025, government borrowing from the banking sector stood at BDT 4.34 trillion. By the end of January 2026, that figure had climbed to BDT 5.63 trillion. In just one year, government debt from banks rose by BDT 1.28 trillion — a growth rate of 29.66 percent. Bank lending to the private sector, by contrast, now expands at only 6 percent.
The International Monetary Fund has raised major questions over the “development narrative” for Bangladesh’s GDP growth and macroeconomy promoted over the past decade. In its latest Data Adequacy Assessment report for January 2026, the IMF gave a “C” rating to Bangladesh’s national accounts. According to the assessment, Bangladesh still uses antiquated methods for GDP calculations. The failure to update the “Supply and Use Tables” regularly means the true picture of output does not emerge. The national income data also contain significant limitations, notably poor timeliness and long publication delays.
Malaysia, a Southeast Asian nation of 34.2 million people, had a GDP of $470 billion in 2025. Although its GDP gap with Bangladesh is narrow, the two countries’ real pictures differ greatly. Malaysia enjoys an advantage in per capita income thanks to its smaller population, but its economy is also far more diversified. Electronics and electrical goods, palm oil and petroleum lead its exports. The country now serves as a global hub for the semiconductor industry. Malaysian inflation remains relatively stable, and its foreign reserves stand robust. The infrastructure and socio-economic profile of a $470 billion economy like Malaysia looks strikingly inconsistent with that of a $456 billion economy like Bangladesh.