Md Asaduz Zaman

The government has proposed a Tk 761,000 crore budget for fiscal year 2023-24 without offering any concrete roadmap or action plan for generating employment for its vast working age population, said an economist on Saturday. 

The journey of Islamic banking began with the goal of conducting banking business in Muslim countries around the world in accordance with Islamic Shariah.

The gap between inflation and the wage rate growth in Bangladesh rose to a nine-month high in May, deepening the cost-of-living crisis for the poor and the low-income groups as consumer prices continue to outpace real incomes.  

Although the size of allocation for social security programmes has enlarged, the government has made no significant changes to cushion the vulnerable groups of people from persistent inflationary pressure.

In his budget speech for FY2023-24 at the national parliament today, Kamal said inflation would be largely controlled from here on.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today proposed increasing the social safety net programme allocation by 11 per cent year-on-year for fiscal year 2023-24.

Individuals who are required to submit income tax returns to avail of various government services will have to pay a minimum tax of Tk 2,000 even if they do not have taxable incomes.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today proposed increasing the tax-free income limit to Tk 3.5 lakh from the existing Tk 3 lakh for individual taxpayers for 2023-24 fiscal year.

Although budgetary allocation for social safety net programmes has increased over the past 13 years, the share of compatible programmes has declined significantly.

The voices of disadvantaged groups, the poor and small entrepreneurs have remained unheard when it comes to policy-making as fiscal policies have been captured by vested sections of society, alleged Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Despite being the last budget before the next general election, the government has little scope to unveil a big spending plan for the next fiscal year owing to limited fiscal space driven by lower-than-expected revenue collection, a noted economist said.

The government should take specific steps through the upcoming national budget for 2022-23 to roll out a universal pension scheme, said an economist. 

The government is yet to take any comprehensive corrective measures to tackle macroeconomic challenges as it has not properly assessed the gravity of the situation in the current fiscal year, an economist said.  

The government is planning to undertake a Tk 303-crore project to increase milk, meat and egg production in char areas under Dhaka division by at least 15 per cent to 20 per cent and subsequently improve living standards.

The government is far away from achieving the major targets set for the current fiscal year when the national budget was unveiled in June last year, owing to its failures to assess the global scenario before fixing the goals, experts said.    

The government plans to increase its development spending slightly in the upcoming fiscal year due to the narrow fiscal space, the dollar crisis, the conditions attached to the IMF’s loan programme, and higher expenses on subsidies and interest payments. 

Inflation in Bangladesh fell slightly to 9.24 per cent in April, driven by a decline in food prices, although it still remains at an elevated level compared to historic trends, official figures showed yesterday.

A project of the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) aimed at developing its industrial estate in Barishal and improving infrastructure there has again missed the deadline for completion owing to sluggish implementation, official documents showed.  

A project for expanding artificial reproduction and implementing embryo transfer technology in livestock farming has been delayed once again due to slow implementation.

The compensation for worker deaths due to factory accidents in Bangladesh is still lower than the per capita income of its nationals, according to the leader of a workers’ rights body.