The Asian Development Bank has agreed to provide up to $1 billion in budget support by June, but the government must commit to several terms that include reducing the tenure and number of private bank directors.
The initially estimated costs of these projects were $11.2 billion in total
The International Monetary Fund has set a prior condition for introducing a full 15 percent statutory VAT rate on 213 products before placing the $645 million loan proposal for the fourth tranche to its executive board.
Finance adviser talks about govt’s 3 strategies to ease economic strain
The interim government may consider a dearness allowance for lower-grade government staff to provide respite from the ongoing high inflation.
Subsidies for the power sector are likely to balloon 83 percent this fiscal year as the interim government is planning to clear all arrears owed to private power producers.
As much as $670 million (around Tk 8,200 crore) from slow-moving World Bank-funded projects will be repurposed, with most of the funds going towards budget support as the government looks to navigate the narrow fiscal space amid a slowing economy.
Over half of the government’s total revenue expenditure during the first four months of the current fiscal year of 2024–25 was on interest payments alone, mainly due to increased borrowing and a rise in the interest rates.
Amid the crisis of dollars, the next Annual Development Programme will have a record Tk 1 lakh crore allocation from foreign funds.
The latest proposal was made to the IMF’s visiting mission yesterday during a joint meeting with officials of the finance division and central bank at the finance ministry in Dhaka.
Bangladesh will introduce a crawling peg system by next month to make the exchange rate more flexible and improve the foreign currency reserves, a key prescription from the International Monetary Fund.
The government has drawn up a plan to increase the price of electricity four times a year for the next three years to withdraw all subsidies in the power sector, which the IMF recommends.
Bangladesh’s macroeconomic performance has significantly improved since the country entered the IMF’s $4.7 billion loan programme in January last year, but the bleeding of foreign currency reserves continues, putting the taka under pressure, the global lender said yesterday.
Bangladesh should allow greater flexibility in its exchange rate to address issues in its external account, particularly the deficit in the financial account, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today
The government is likely to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to revise down two key targets related to Net International Reserves (NIR) and tax revenue collection, set for June this year for the release of the fourth tranche of its $4.7 billion loan, finance ministry officials said.
The government spent Tk 246,583 crore in July-January of 2023-24 out of the total budget of Tk 761,785 crore for the entire fiscal year, figures from the finance ministry showed. The outlay under interest payments and subsidies was Tk 88,226 crore, which was 36 percent of the allocation.
The Finance Division last week disbursed Tk 1,500 crore in subsidy against the power ministry’s demand for the immediate release of Tk 3,000 crore to boost electricity supply during the summer months.
The International Monetary Fund yesterday recommended reducing government subsidies by hiking prices of power, gas and fertiliser, and spending the saved money on society safety net programmes.
