Rejaul Karim Byron

Bangladesh’s gross domestic product (GDP) may grow by as high as 5.6 per cent in the current fiscal year, subject to three factors, said the World Bank yesterday.

The World Bank has more than doubled its gross domestic product (GDP) growth prediction for Bangladesh for the current fiscal year as the economy shows signs of recovery.

The state coffer was empty after Bangladesh’s nine-month-long Liberation War. Poverty, hunger, natural disasters, famine, crumbling infrastructure, political turmoil, and coups in the first decade of Bangladesh’sinception did not paint a picture that would radiate hope.

Bangladesh needs to improve infrastructure and standard of education, equip the youth population with market-oriented skills and uproot corruption to become a high-income country, experts say.

The government yesterday approved the import of 50,000 tonnes of rice from India in order to increase the country’s food stock and control spiralling prices.

The government has increased the allocation for its Money for Work and Test Relief (TR) programmes by 81.25 percent for the current fiscal year to revitalise a pandemic-hit rural economy and provide money to people through development of rural infrastructure.

The government’s plan to use foreign exchange reserves to bankroll infrastructure projects may face difficulty in the current fiscal year as rising imports will leave little leeway for making such lending.

The implementation of the 44-kilometre Dhaka-Tongi-Joydebpur rail line under an Indian line of credit (LoC) has made progress of 31.2 per cent since its construction began 11 years ago.

An “in-house feasibility study” of Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) has come to the fore for all the wrong reasons, having cost a project an excess Tk 629 crore and four years’ delay.

In a first-ever move, the government is going to use €524.56 million from the ballooning foreign exchange reserves for a development project.

State lenders in Bangladesh are sometimes in the news for all the wrong reasons. But they also carry the weight of the fast-expanding economy.

Restructure of corporate tax, improvement in the ranking of the Ease of Doing Business Index, and special allocation for SMEs should get priority in the upcoming budget to draw investment and revive the job market, employers and economists say.

The government is set to undertake a huge Tk 5,883 crore digital connectivity project, in a move that could equip every corner of the country with the latest ICT infrastructure, making almost all government services digital and increasing the use of ICT at field levels.

The government has planned to build 30,000 homes for insolvent valiant freedom fighters and family members of the martyred and deceased war heroes in a bid to uplift their socioeconomic status.

As a part of its aggressive push to increase the country’s food stock, the government yesterday approved three proposals to import a total of 3.5 lakh tonnes of rice from India, Thailand and Vietnam under state-to-state arrangements.

To replenish the country’s fast-depleting food stock, the government has approved a proposal to lessen the time of bidding process by over a month for ensuring a faster import of rice.

Annual allocations for four of the seven ADP-funded first-track projects have either increased or remained the same, a sign that those are coping well with the pandemic fallout.

In the face of depleting food stock and sluggish public procurement of foodgrains, the government has started providing cash instead of rice or wheat to implement its Test Relief and Food for Work programmes.

The government has slashed the development budget for the current fiscal year by 3.26 per cent, keeping the local portion of the fund almost unchanged while trimming the foreign part.

The allocation to the revised annual development programme may trim by only Tk 7 lakh although the government had decided to put low-priority projects on hold in the beginning of the fiscal year because of the coronavirus pandemic.