Pandemic-induced Economic Slowdown And Bangladesh Economy The most recent report on‘Global Productivity’ from the World Bank published in the backdrop of the pandemic identified Bangladesh to be among the few economies that experienced a growth in productivity since the global financial crisis of 2008-09. As per the report, productivity growth in Bangladesh was robust between 2013 and 2018 at 5.1 percent(which is above the country’s pre-GFC average productivity of 4.7 percent). This has put Bangladesh in the top decile of EMDEs. This success is attributed to macro-economic and political stability in the country that facilitated both public and private fixed investment(Dieppe, 2020). While Bangladesh has benefitted from its limited exposure to external headwinds, continued rapid urbanization, and an improving busines environment; the COVID-19 shock and the related plunge in global economy poses significant risk to this productivity growth(ibid). The World Bank, perhaps taking the afore mentioned risk into account, projected severely contracted growth for Bangladesh Economy in its latest report titled‘Global Economic Prospect’, published in June 2020. The Bank projected a meager 1.6 percent growth of real GDP for Bangladesh in 2020 in stark contrast with the ratio being 8.2 percent for the previous year as per the Bank estimations. This projection, in fact, is 5.6 percentage points lower compared to earlier projections of the Bank for Bangladesh’s real GDP growth rate in 2020(World Bank, 2020). The Bank fears further cuts if bringing the pandemic under control takes longer than expected or if financial stress triggers cascading defaults(ibid). The ADB, however, is comparatively much more optimistic about economic growth projection of Bangladesh in 2020 and 2021; and hence is closer to the predictions of GoB itself. In the Asian Development Outlook 2020, ADB especially focused on impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. It says that growth in South Asia will decelerate to 4.1 percent in 2020 and then recover to 6.0 percent in 2021 mostly in alignment with the trends in growth in India, the largest economy in the area. Yet, Bangladesh’s GDP performance has been reported to remain strong. As per ADP forecasts, Bangladesh economy will grow by 7.8 percent(later adjusted to 6.8 per cent in September) in 2020 despite significant pulling back of global demand (ADB, 2020). This ratio is still 0.4 percentage points lesser than the growth recorded in the previous year(8.2 percent in 2019). ADB further projects that Bangladesh’s growth rate will recover to 8.0 percent in 2021. And more importantly the report projects the inflation to remain in check and the current account deficit to further narrow during this period. In fact, it has already become positive, thanks to robust performances of the remittance and the export sectors in recent months defying earlier prediction of gloom by many experts and organizations. These optimistic forecasts about Bangladesh Economy by ADB rest on certain assumptions such as continuation of political stability, maintenance of consumer and investment confidence, improved trade in 2021, and expansionary monetary policy by the central bank to support economic growth. Most importantly, the ADB projections assume that the pandemic will not further affect economic activities of the country. It also identifies adequate resource mobilization through efficient taxation as the pre-requisite for Bangladesh to materialize its macroeconomic potential in the coming years(ibid). While growth projections vary from one development partner to another, it is obvious that Bangladesh economy has already been severely affected by the pandemic­induced economic slowdown and a lot will depend in the coming years on how the policy makers deal with these affects. This is, perhaps, truer for the SME sector compared to the rest of the economy due to this sector being comparatively labor intensive, relying more on informal economic activities and above all- having comparatively lesser access to formal finance. Effect Of The Pandemic On Bangladesh SMEs As has been mentioned earlier, a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the pandemic on the SME sector is yet to be conducted. This is partly because the pandemic is not over yet and partly because comprehensive and up to date SME statistics(data base) is not available. Yet, a couple of quick surveys regarding the effect of the pandemic on SMEs in Bangladesh has caught attention of the stakeholders. Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies(BIDS) conducted a quick survey covering 375 SMEs and 360 workers between 26 April 2020 and 10 May 2020(Ovi, 2020). Key findings from the survey were: * Average reduction of revenue for all SMEs is 66 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. * Share of SME products remaining unsold due to economic slowdown was found to be 76 percent. * Because of the‘partial lockdown’ only 16 percent SMEs remained fully operational. * Among the SME employees 42 percent received partial salary, while another 4 percent did not receive salaries at all. * Entrepreneurs reported that they will be able sustain for about another month(i.e., until June 2020) if the lockdown continued further. Another similar survey was conducted by LightCastle Partners in collaboration with Sheba.xyz which covered 230 enterprises across eight divisions of Bangladesh. This survey was conducted during the first week of April 2020. 18 . Coping With The Covid-19 Pandemic