Bangladesh

Bangladesh: strong, sustained growth, 1980–2025

A ready-made-garment export boom, alongside steady remittance inflows and improving human-development indicators, drove one of the fastest sustained growth records in South Asia despite frequent natural disasters. Between 1980 and 2025, Bangladesh's GDP per capita grew from $206 to $2,597 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 5.8% — strong, sustained growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 5.1% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 1.5 points, reflecting relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 32.8% to 11.4% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 44.6% to 52.1% of GDP, underscoring a shift toward a services-driven economy. On human development, life expectancy rose from 52.3 to 74.9 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 2.9% to 23.7%, while the urban population share grew from 14.7% to 33.2%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 0.09 to 0.72 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) widened from 25.9 to 30.9; the poverty headcount ratio fell from 47.1% to 5.9%.