Muhith sits with economists on budget Monday

Finance Minister AMA Muhith will sit with economists on Monday to discuss the upcoming national budget as part of his series of pre-budget meetings.
On April 15, Muhith will sit with standing committee chairmen and members of parliament, followed by another meeting with ministries and divisions under the medium term budgetary framework (MTBF).
After a four-day recess, the finance minister will have discussions with the non-MTBF ministries and divisions on April 20.
On April 22, he will have two meetings -- first with the editors and other senior journalists of print and electronic media, and then with NGO leaders.
Muhith began his pre-budget meeting on April 1, with the chairmen and members of seven parliamentary standing committees followed by another meeting with the representatives of Economic Reporters Forum (ERF) on April 4.
In the first meeting, the lawmakers urged the finance minister to pay special attention to gas and electricity as well as inflation for the upcoming budget of fiscal 2010-11.
They underscored that exploration of coal and gas, setting up new power plants, implementation of public-private-partnership, rural development, addressing population problem and creating employment opportunities must be taken into account before the budget is finalised.
At the second meeting with the ERF, the minister hinted that the size of the budget for the next fiscal year would be around Tk 130,000 crore while the annual development programme would be around Tk 38,000 crore.