Growth rate of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is likely to cross 7 per cent level in the current fiscal year, according to the latest projection of the central bank.

Bangladesh Bank Quarterly (Oct-Dec, 2016) has revealed the projection.

The periodical, officially released on Sunday, also said that the growth projection is based on current and projected trends of a number of variables including global economic growth, domestic and foreign investment, private sector credit growth, electricity production, growth of capital goods import.

In the current fiscal year’s budget, the government has set a target of 7.2 per cent growth while expressed optimism to contain annual rate of inflation within 5.8 per cent.

Bangladesh Bank Quarterly, however, said that though the current level of CPI inflation (12-month average) is below the target, point to point non-food inflation has already been rising since July 2016 which might put some upward pressure on average inflation in coming months.

Last week Asian Development Bank (ADB), in its latest Asian Development Outlook (ADO), projected 6.9 per cent growth for the current fiscal year.

GDP growth reached 7.11 per cent in the last fiscal year (FY16) which was 6.55 per cent in FY15 and 6.06 per cent in FY14.