Rejaul Karim Byron

Gross inflow of foreign direct investment to Bangladesh fell 13.8 per cent to $3.73 billion in the first 11 months of last fiscal year, largely owing to the coronavirus pandemic, which came as a shock to foreign investors.

The World Bank has been an ever-reassuring presence in Bangladesh’s growth narrative, and the multilateral lender will continue to play that role, said its country director.

Life expectancy at birth for Bangladeshis has risen to 72.6 years because of what experts said was progress made in health care and economy.

The VAT Intelligence yesterday withdrew its directive that had asked banks to provide information on discrepancies in turnover figures shown by potential borrowers in returns and annual financial statements.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal must have harked back on that oft-quoted saying of English monk John Lydgate when he was finalising the Finance Bill 2020.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal may scrap his plans to raise the supplementary duty (SD) on telecom services and double the deposit in VAT-related disputes following criticism and pleas from various quarters.

Just one year after a rise, Bangladeshi nationals’ deposits in Swiss banks dropped 2.26 percent year-on-year in 2019 to 603 million Swiss francs or Tk 5,427 crore.

Amid growing concern over the slow pace of work of almost all fast track projects due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the government is working to find ways to speed up the schemes.

The budgetary grants rose more than four times to Tk 12,680 crore in the next fiscal year on the back of a large block allocation to meet urgent health and social protection expenses.

Revenue collection fell massively for the second consecutive month in May as incomes and demand for goods and services crashed because of the lengthy shutdown put in place to battle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taxpayer-guaranteed loans for Biman Bangladesh Airlines more than doubled to Tk 10,279 crore as the state-run carrier took credits to buy new Boeing aircraft.

Amid talks of prioritising the health and farming sectors, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council yesterday approved giving lawmakers from rural areas Tk 20 crore each for infrastructure development in the next five years.

Development spending nosedived 48.22 per cent in April and May in the current fiscal year, highlighting how the pandemic-induced shutdown brought the country’s economic and development activities to a screeching halt.

The government is going to provide financial assistance to over two lakh non-government school and college teachers and staffers, who are outside the purview of the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme, aiming to minimise their financial hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bangladesh’s efforts to feed the nation, create jobs and keep the ailing economy afloat amid the progressively ferocious pandemic received a shot in the arm after the World Bank yesterday approved $1.05 billion.

The World Bank has urged Bangladesh to bring in fundamental reforms in order to digitalise the economy and support the next wave of digital development.

The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (OCAG) has decided to consider 640,000 general audit objections, filed from 1971-1972 to 2009-2010 fiscal year, as resolved.

The Asian Development Bank, it seems, is rather certain that Bangladesh’s economic recovery from the coronavirus-induced downturn would be V-shaped.

The government’s subsidy spending would go up by 26.25 per cent to Tk 56,051 crore in the next fiscal year, on the back of taxpayer-funded allocation for food, interest and agriculture sectors.

The coronavirus pandemic is turning out to be a quite a costly affair for Bangladesh, due to which its public debt-to-GDP ratio, which has thus far been in a healthy position, is set to exceed the responsible threshold of 40 per cent.