Inflation hits 11-year high
If there is one indicator that epitomises the government’s mismanagement of the economy in recent times, it is inflation -- which raced to an 11-year high of 9.94 percent in May.
A budget divorced from reality
Self-contradictory is what best describes Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s fifth budget, and the last of the Awami League-led government’s current term.
Bracing for budget of self-preservation
In 2019, when AHM Mustafa Kamal took charge as the finance minister, the Bangladesh economy was taxing for take-off for its long-haul flight to the developed country club.
Time to hit the reset button
This year was always supposed to be a celebration of Bangladesh’s economic progress with the opening of Padma bridge and Dhaka metro rail and 100 percent electrification.
What is Bangladesh's current forex reserve?
Ever since Sri Lanka and Pakistan’s economic turmoil, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves has become a part of public discourse. So much so that despite having an official figure from the central bank every week, people are speculating.
Inflation at 9-year high
Inflation raced to a nine-year high of 7.56 percent in June, in a development that lays bare the extent of the cost of living crisis gripping the low-income and middle-class people in Bangladesh thanks to a war taking place some 5,800 kilometres away in Ukraine.
Budget 2022-23: Bet on poor, future
What is the purpose of the national budget? In essence, it is to allocate scarce resources.
June 27, 2021
Moment to fix the SME sector
Often touted as the backbone of an economy, Bangladesh has never wholeheartedly nurtured the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises sector like the governments around the world, particularly those of China, India, the UK, the US.
June 20, 2021
Corporate Tax Hike for MFS Players: Throttling industry growth for nothing
Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs -- suggests the famous Greek storyteller Aesop. And looking at Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s proposed tax measures for the mobile financial services operators for the incoming fiscal year, one cannot help but recall the famous fable.
June 9, 2021
BTRC’S new broadband tariff: Would it bring cheap internet? Unlikely
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission’s move on Sunday to fix the broadband prices brings to mind an oft-used quote by celebrated French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: A goal without a plan is nothing but a wish.
June 6, 2021
A budget that fails to save lives and livelihood
He set off to save lives and livelihoods in his third budget as the finance minister and his second amid the global coronavirus pandemic, and along the way, went astray.
August 11, 2020
The cool head steering Unilever Bangladesh through the tempest
We are sailing through the most extraordinary times in living memory, with every facet of what we knew as normal life upended. So, one would expect the man heading the Bangladesh arm of a multinational behemoth like Unilever to be fidgety.
June 12, 2020
A budget not of its time
Any finance minister delivering a national budget wants, ideally, to project three qualities: calm, authority and very slight dullness.
June 11, 2020
Budget of self-preservation
It seems the universe keeps conspiring against Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. When it is his moment to shine, some misfortune strikes. Last year, it was dengue, and this year, it is the raging coronavirus that has left him at the centre of what could possibly be Bangladesh’s most acute economic -- and human -- crisis yet.
June 10, 2020
A V-shaped economic recovery is still within reach. But the general public must play its part.
Optimism is a disease, the polemical British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie once said, and talking with Manmohan Parkash, the country director of the Asian Development Bank, one can’t help but catch that disease.
January 25, 2020
Docking bad loans has now become critical
Age is the price of wisdom, it is often said. And an audience with the immediate past finance minister, AMA Muhith, calls to mind that saying.
January 20, 2020
‘We are a nation in a hurry’
Halfway through an interview at the Planning Commission, Planning Minister MA Mannan is asked about the logic behind the inordinate number of projects that are in implementation at any given moment.
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