There will be no further easing this quarter. Bangladesh Bank is holding the repo rate where it has been, at 9.5 percent, through October to December, caught between inflation that is still above where it wants it and an economy that is plainly not strong.
Deputy Governor Md Habibur Rahman announced the monetary policy statement at a press conference at the central bank’s headquarters. The standing lending facility rate stays at 11 percent and the standing deposit facility rate at 7.5 percent.
A half-point cut on August 2 was the last move. Since then the headline rate has come in at 8.26 percent for August, better than any month since last autumn, with food contributing 7.02 percent and everything else 9.32 percent. The non-food figure is the one giving the central bank pause, since it tends to respond more slowly to policy than food prices do.
Growth numbers argue in the other direction. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics put GDP growth at 4.14 percent for FY26, with the third quarter expanding by just 2.2 percent. Private sector credit grew 4.75 percent in August against a target of 6.8 percent through December.
Much of that weakness sits with the banks rather than with the price of money. Bad loans accounted for 32.78 percent of sector lending in June 2026, a level that leaves many banks with little appetite or capacity to extend new credit regardless of where the policy rate sits.
Alongside the rate decision, the central bank detailed a Tk 60,000 crore loan package, made up of Tk 41,000 crore in refinancing and Tk 19,000 crore from its own funds. A third of it, Tk 20,000 crore, is set aside to get shuttered factories running again; what remains is pointed at exporters, small businesses and agriculture.
On the external side, FY26 closed with a $6.6 billion surplus driven by remittances, though the first two months of FY27 have slipped into deficit. Forecasts for the current year diverge: the World Bank expects 4.6 percent growth, while the IMF has cut its projection to 3.5 percent from 4.3 percent.
