The cabinet has approved the proposed national budget for fiscal year 2019-20. It was approved around 2:15pm with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina chairing the special meeting held at the parliament complex, Parliament Secretariat sources said.

Budget documents will be available on different websites of the government, as Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is set to announce the proposed national budget for FY20 this afternoon.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal unveils Tk 523,190 crore national budget for the fiscal year of 2019-20 at the national parliament.

The Bangladesh economy is taxing for take-off -- for its long-haul flight to the developed country club, with couple of stopovers in between.

Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is going to use social media platforms such as Facebook and Viber, among others, to receive complaints from the customers, says its chairman at a public hearing.

Robi is planning to raise Tk 400 crore from the local market by issuing a Shariah-based security bond with the face value of each certificate being Tk 1 lakh.

Crores of mobile phone users can brace themselves for poorer network quality as the carriers and tower licence holders have failed to get on the same page seven months into the new arrangement.

Computer meltdowns. Unexplained holes in accounting. Personnel management scandals.

Import-laden containers are piling up at Chattogram port mainly due to slow delivery as operations of factories and vehicular movement are yet to return to normalcy following the Eid vacation.

The government may relax the baggage rules from next fiscal year to facilitate travellers to bring in gold bars and jewellery through the formal channel as it looks to curb smuggling.

Once a much-hyped breakthrough for internet communication, WiMax is now on its last legs in Bangladesh after two out of the three operators that deployed the wireless broadband technology turned off their switches.

The Reserve Bank of India diluted its guidelines on stressed assets and has now mandated banks to undertake a review of a borrower’s accounts within 30 days of default, according to a circular issued on Friday.

The Bank of England is approaching the time when it will need to raise interest rates again to keep inflation pressures in check, its chief economist Andy Haldane wrote in an article which pushes back strongly against recent market sentiment.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned on Saturday that the increasing presence of technology giants using big data and artificial intelligence could cause a significant disruption to the world’s financial system.

A ban on buying telecoms equipment from Chinese firms would add about 55 billion euros ($62 billion) to the cost of 5G networks in Europe and delay the technology by about 18 months, according to an industry analysis seen by Reuters.

The government’s proposal to increase cash incentive by one percentage point for exporters is insufficient to jumpstart shipments from many sectors, said leaders of different trade bodies.

The continued slowdown in deposit growth can go on to raise concerns of stability of the banking sector, said a Bangladesh Bank report -- in a pressing call to the government to cut down the interest rate on national savings certificates.

At a time when most lenders are battling liquidity crisis, rising default loans and poor governance, Eastern Bank Limited (EBL) is sitting pretty by all accounts.

Banks should be the only ones setting the interest rates as they offer loans at rates that are based on factors like cost of funds, credit worthiness of a customer and the prevailing market condition, said AKM Shaheed Reza, chairman of Mercantile Bank.

The government’s interest burden is likely to get heavier in the upcoming fiscal year thanks to its excessive reliance on high-cost national savings certificates to fund its expenditures.