ABSTRACT
The usual description of Bangladesh as a backward and overwhelmingly agricultural country remains as true today as it was in 1972, the first year of independent Bangladesh, or indeed in 1947, the year Pakistan became independent. In the intervening period, the rise in per capita income has been slow and erratic, primarily determined by the fluctuations in the growth in output of the agricultural sector. While GDP growth rate has averaged less than three per cent per annum (1949–50 – 1985–86 average 2.88 per cent with the highest rate of 4.98 per cent per annum for 1960–61 – 1964–65), GDP per head of active population has grown at a much lower rate of less than one per cent (0.64) over the period 1949–50 – 1985–86 with negative growth over the fifties and a downswing over the early eighties (Table 11.1).
