Bangladesh FM unveils over BDT 4.64 trillion budget

Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh Finance Minister AMA Muhith placed over BDT 4.64 trillion budget outlays for fiscal 2018-19 at the National Parliament of Bangladesh on Thursday.

The 85-year-old minister began to place the digital presentation of the crucial yearly spending plan for the nation from around 12:53pm (BST).

Muhith becomes the first finance minister in the history of Bangladesh to place ten consecutive national budgets as he appeared before the parliament today.

Today’s proposal takes the finance minister’s total national budget tally to 12, including the two he had placed during the military regime of HM Ershad.

Earlier, the Cabinet approved the national budget at a special meeting at the National Parliament.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina presided over the special meeting of the Cabinet held at the National Parliament.

The aim of the gigantic budget is to achieve 7.8 per cent economic growth by the end of FY 2018-19 and bring dynamism in the overall economic activities through improving infrastructure facilities across the country.

The finance minister hopes to keep the inflation target below 5.4 percent in the new fiscal year.

According to the revenue earnings outline, the Value Added Tax or VAT is the biggest contributor with BDT 1.1 trillion, followed by income tax with over BDT 1 trillion and customs BDT 858 billion.

The budget deficit will be kept at 4.9 percent of the GDP.

On the expenditure side of the budget, the government has already approved the BDT 1.73 trillion Annual Development Programme or ADP, which is nearly 17 percent higher than the revised ADP of the outgoing fiscal.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, on various occasions, has indicated that the budget would have a little something for everybody. For some people, there may be much to look forward to.

Officials said demands from different quarters would be accommodated in the budget, and that it would offer a tax cut to help boost local businesses.

Social safety net programmes, the beating heart of any compassionate campaign, will receive higher allocations.

The next fiscal year’s budget is big – BDT464,573 crore – 16% bigger than the size of the outgoing fiscal year budget.

Like in the previous years, the budget of this year made available on the website of the finance division –www.mof.gov.bd.

Any person or organisation at home and abroad can send feedback, opinion or recommendation by filling up a form after downloading it from the website.

The finance minister will address a post budget press briefing on Friday, said a finance ministry press release today.

The press briefing will be held at 2:30pm at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium where the finance minister will speak and respond to quarries from journalists on the proposed budget.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) will also hold a press conference on the proposed budget tomorrow at 11:00am in the city’s Lakeshore Hotel.

BBN/SSR/AD