Rejaul Karim Byron

At a time when the government has undertaken austerity measures to reduce public spending, it is going to purchase 261 Sport Utility Vehicles for deputy commissioners and Upazila Nirbahi Officers ahead of the national election.

The International Monetary Fund yesterday trimmed Bangladesh’s growth forecast for this fiscal year to 6 percent, following in the lead of its sister organisation, the World Bank.

The International Monetary Fund staff mission yesterday raised four burning issues in their meetings with the Bangladesh Bank and the finance ministry: foreign currency reserves, inflation, banking sector and revenue collection.

The government is preparing a $27 billion budget for the upcoming five-year health sector plan, up 52.5 percent from the ongoing programme that ends in June 2024.

Bangladesh’s credit rating came under further threat yesterday as Fitch put the country on a “negative” outlook while giving a damning verdict on the central bank’s policy response to the fast-depleting foreign currency reserves.

The government’s borrowing from the banking system has remained in check so far in the ongoing fiscal year thanks to lower expenditures and higher revenue collection.   

Government revenue collection in the July-August period, the first two months of the current fiscal year of 2023-24, has increased by nearly 15 percent year-on-year, thanks to a rise in VAT from multinational companies. 

Although higher consumer prices have persisted in the first few months of the current fiscal year, inflation in Bangladesh is going to cool in the later part of 2023-24 thanks to one external and two domestic factors, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast yesterday.

Bangladesh is expecting another $250 million in budget support from the World Bank after the government fulfilled the conditions laid out for the funding.

About 13,000 people enrolled on the universal pension system in the month since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flagged it off, with private sector employees making the majority.

The cost of debt servicing has risen significantly amid a higher flow of loans from development partners and an elevated level of interest payments, compounding pressure on the foreign currency reserve of Bangladesh, official figures showed.  

Liquidity in Shariah-based banks in Bangladesh remains tight due to a dip in deposit collection and the banks’ inability to make the most of the central bank support to overcome the situation, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report.

The scale of the immediate but devastating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Bangladesh’s economy emerged for the first time after the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) published the quarterly data of the GDP to meet IMF’s conditions.

China to fund it; AIIB to finance power supply infrastructure; proposals to be placed before Ecnec today

Inflation advanced 23 basis points in August to 9.92 percent propelled by food inflation, which hit a 12-year-high -- laying bare the magnitude of the cost of living crisis staring down on the poor and the low-income people.

The Ecnec yesterday approved a project to construct a medical college, hospital and nursing college partially on a wetland in Chandpur despite Planning Commission’s observation that the project cost may rise because of the nature of the chosen site.

Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation is going to take up a project to import 340 buses and other equipment from South Korea.

Bangladesh is expecting another $1 billion in budget support towards the end of the year in a financing arrangement led by the Asian Development Bank.

The incidence of bribe requests in Bangladesh is less than in India and Pakistan, according to a recent report from the Asian Development Bank.

July’s development spending was the highest in four years on the back of enthusiastic fund utilisation by the local government division -- whose expenditure hit a record high for the first month of a fiscal year.