Desk Report: New York’s Global Finance Magazine scored Bangladesh Bank’s Governor  Abdur Rouf Talukder a D in global ranking.

They cited a failure to tame inflation, currency devaluation, structural weakness of Bangladesh’s economy, the government’s majority control over Bangladesh Bank, and other vulnerability to external reasons for his score.

In that report titled “High-Wire Artists: Central Banker Report Cards 2023”, the central bank heads, namely India’s Shaktikanta Das, Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Hong, and Switzerland’s Thomas Jordan, each got an A+ grade.

Among the 26 governors in the Asia Pacific region, only the governor of Laotian central bank, Bounleua Sinxayvoravong lagged behind Talukder with an F grade.

Nandalal Weerasinghe, who led Sri Lanka out of bankruptcy and hyperinflation, got an A- (A minus).

In the South Asia region, the governor of Nepal’s central bank, Maha Prasad Adhikari is also ahead of Abdur Rouf Talukder with a B- grade, as well as Pakistan’s Jameel Ahmad, who got a C- grade.

Regarding Bangladesh Bank governor Abdur Rouf Talukder, the publication stated: “For Bangladesh Bank (BB), as with many other central banks in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), the mandate was reasonably met during the first half of the review period: Post-Covid GDP growth was solid at 5.6%, while inflation modestly overshot BB’s 5% target by 0.6% and the taka was steady.”

“However, by mid-2022, the Taka was devalued by 9.5%; importers struggled with an onshore shortage of dollars; energy and food costs ballooned due to the Ukraine conflict; and inflation ran rampant. Having burned through the central bank’s forex reserves, a call went out for International Monetary Fund (IMF) support. But the structural weakness of the Bangladesh economy and the government’s 60% control of the central bank produce a vulnerability to externalities such as the inflation shock of 2022,” report added.

Since 1994, Global Finance Magazine has been grading the governors of different countries of the world.

The Central Banker Report Card is published regularly as an annual publication of the periodical.

The latest report for 2023 is published based on the assessment of central bank governors of 101 key countries.

Regarding the report methodology it said, the report rates central bank governors on a scale of A to F, with A being the highest grade and F the lowest, based on objective and subjective metrics.

Judgments are based on performance from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023.

The report was published on Sunday.

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