Md Asaduz Zaman

Five developed nations have continued to account for more than half of Bangladesh’s export earnings, highlighting the country’s narrow market base and the vulnerability it faces.

A government project aiming to enhance food security in Bangladesh has made less than 50 per cent progress even though nearly 10 years have passed since the Tk 3,569 crore initiative began in January 2014.

Farmers in Bangladesh are struggling to make the most of a government project that aims to expand farm mechanisation as they face difficulties in availing after-sales services, among other issues, according to a report by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED).

The cost-of-living crisis seems to have brought more woes for daily workers in Bangladesh than other groups of labourers as their average wage growth has been below the inflation rate for the past two fiscal years.  

The ongoing holiday centring Eid-ul-Azha has raised concerns among mango farmers that prices for the fruit may decline further in coming days despite the high production cost.

The government’s dependence on borrowing to finance national budgets has increased over the past decade as revenue collection has failed to keep pace with the ballooning public expenditure.

The government is set to miss its development spending target as well as the goal of raising the use of foreign loans by a large margin in the outgoing financial year, official figures showed.

The digital divide continues to exist in Bangladesh underscoring disparities in internet access between rural and urban areas, while gender digital divide also worsened.

The government has proposed a Tk 761,000 crore budget for fiscal year 2023-24 without offering any concrete roadmap or action plan for generating employment for its vast working age population, said an economist on Saturday. 

The journey of Islamic banking began with the goal of conducting banking business in Muslim countries around the world in accordance with Islamic Shariah.

The gap between inflation and the wage rate growth in Bangladesh rose to a nine-month high in May, deepening the cost-of-living crisis for the poor and the low-income groups as consumer prices continue to outpace real incomes.  

Although the size of allocation for social security programmes has enlarged, the government has made no significant changes to cushion the vulnerable groups of people from persistent inflationary pressure.

In his budget speech for FY2023-24 at the national parliament today, Kamal said inflation would be largely controlled from here on.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today proposed increasing the social safety net programme allocation by 11 per cent year-on-year for fiscal year 2023-24.

Individuals who are required to submit income tax returns to avail of various government services will have to pay a minimum tax of Tk 2,000 even if they do not have taxable incomes.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today proposed increasing the tax-free income limit to Tk 3.5 lakh from the existing Tk 3 lakh for individual taxpayers for 2023-24 fiscal year.

Although budgetary allocation for social safety net programmes has increased over the past 13 years, the share of compatible programmes has declined significantly.

The voices of disadvantaged groups, the poor and small entrepreneurs have remained unheard when it comes to policy-making as fiscal policies have been captured by vested sections of society, alleged Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Despite being the last budget before the next general election, the government has little scope to unveil a big spending plan for the next fiscal year owing to limited fiscal space driven by lower-than-expected revenue collection, a noted economist said.

The government should take specific steps through the upcoming national budget for 2022-23 to roll out a universal pension scheme, said an economist.