The external factors are not only responsible for Bangladesh's present economic volatility, rather there are some issues which remained unattended for a long time such as low revenue collection, absence of quality public expenditure and the non-performing loans, said noted economist Debapriya Bhattacharya today.

Bangladesh does have built-in vulnerabilities, but the country's ability to spend is constrained by the existing low tax-GDP ratio, said the distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).

He spoke at a roundtable on "Bangladesh economy: the way forward" organised by The Daily Star at The Daily Star Centre in Dhaka today.

Sayema Haque Bidisha, economics professor of Dhaka University; Miran Ali, managing director of Bitopi Group; Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute; Salehuddin Ahmed, former governor of the Bangladesh Bank, and MM Akash, economics professor of Dhaka University, also spoke at the event moderated by The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam.