Dhaka - The number of Bangladesh's poor, who make up nearly half its 153 million population, are rising because of high food prices, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

Although Bangladesh's macroeconomic growth has been "remarkably resilient" amid last year's repeated natural disasters and global increases in food and fuel prices, life has become more difficult for a large segment of its population, the international lending agency said in a report published Wednesday from its headquarters in Washington and Thursday in Dhaka.

"The natural disasters and subsequent rapid food price increases of early 2008 put severe pressure on incomes, reversing some of the recent reductions in poverty," the report said.

Bangladesh had estimated that more than 40 per cent of its people live below the poverty line, but the recent food crisis and cost of living increases have added significant numbers to the poverty list.

The IMF said the country's economic growth should be 7 per cent in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, provided inflation is kept under control. The figure represents a rise from this year's more than 6-per-cent estimated growth rate because of export earnings from ready-made garments, remittance inflows by expatriate workers and an industrial resurgence, it said.

The country has announced it might lower fuel prices by 10 per cent in the next month.

The financial institution identified significant risks for Bangladesh in the coming year. They included political uncertainty ahead of December's national election that might undermine short-term growth prospects, domestic labour unrest and falling remittances from its nationals working in the Middle East.

The IMF projected an uncertain political environment ahead of elections in a country that has seen political violence in the past. The voting, being arranged by a military-backed caretaker government under a state of emergency, is to return the country to democracy, but the leaders of the country's two major parties are threatening to boycott the election unless they are unconditionally freed from detention as they await trial on corruption charges. (dpa)