Bangladesh

Bangladesh's Military Spending Stays Under 1% of GDP as Debt Load Remains Modest

Bangladesh, classified here within the Asia region, carries a population of more than 173 million alongside a comparatively light military-spending burden, per the figures assembled below.

Economy and Fiscal Position Bangladesh's economy was valued at $450.1 billion in 2024, per World Bank WDI figures, with GDP per capita of $2,593 and a population of 173.6 million. The IMF's 2026 World Economic Outlook puts government debt at 41.8 percent of GDP. Foreign exchange reserves were $21.4 billion in 2024, per World Bank WDI, equal to a modest fraction of the GDP figure recorded above for the same year.

Defense Spending and Capability SIPRI's 2025 figures put Bangladeshi military expenditure at $3.8 billion, or 0.811 percent of GDP under SIPRI's own GDP series, a figure that should not be recomputed against the World Bank GDP figure above, which uses a different denominator. Active personnel numbered 163,000 as of 2022, per COW NMC — a small share of the 173.6 million population recorded above for 2024 — and the same source assigns a CINC score of 0.010128511 for that year, a composite measure built from demographic, industrial and military inputs rather than spending alone. No nuclear-warhead figure appears in this dataset.

Governance V-Dem's 2025 figures score Bangladesh's electoral democracy index at 0.195 and liberal democracy index at 0.116, both on a 0-1 scale. State capacity is scored at 0.311, the highest of the three governance measures recorded here even as the democracy indices sit low.

Energy Primary energy consumption was 1.9047 exajoules in 2024, per Our World in Data, and electricity generation reached 103.4 TWh in 2025. Gas production was 197.25 TWh in 2024, well above the electricity-generation figure, reflecting a different unit base and end use rather than a direct comparison. The oil production figure of 2.574 TWh is dated to 2016 and should not be read as current.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy)