No plan to revise GDP growth target: Kamal

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday said that there is no plan to revise the GDP growth target right now as he believes the government will be able to maintain the estimated growth rate for fiscal 2021-22.

"I hope we can maintain the estimate we made," the minister said while responding to a query at a virtual briefing after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Purchase.

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In the current fiscal, the government set the gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 7.2 per cent.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the provisional GDP growth was 5.2 per cent and in the final calculation, the country's economy grew 3.51 per cent in fiscal 2019-20.

Responding to a query about whether the government will revise the GDP growth target as it was low last year, Kamal said that if the economy is seriously affected, then he would definitely revise the growth target.

"But not at the moment," he added.

Kamal went on to say that though the GDP growth rate was low last fiscal, it was the highest among other Asian countries such as India, Pakistan and Nepal, which saw negative growth that year.

"In Vietnam, the growth has been 2.9 per cent. Bangladesh is more than that. So Bangladesh has done well. Even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the rate of Bangladesh's growth is above all due to the untiring efforts of the people," he said.

Responding to a question regarding a recent statement from the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) that the magic of remittances was coming to an end, Kamal said when a 2 per cent incentive was announced for remittance in 2019, many people took a stand against it.

"They said it was not possible to increase remittances with incentives. When remittances began to grow, they said it (remittance flow) would not sustain. And now they say this magic is over," he added.

Remittances inflow stood at $13.1 billion in FY18-19 and after giving incentives, remittances hit $18.2 billion in the 2019-20 fiscal year.

"And in fiscal 2020-21, remittances hit $24.7 billion. It's incredible," the finance minister said.

Remittance flow has slowed down a bit in July. In this context, Kamal said remittance flow can be ups and downs.

However, in the first nine days of August, remittance reached $567 million while it was $450 million during the same period last year.

"Growth is much higher here. As a result, those who are talking about different things will keep talking while we do our job," Kamal added.