'Innovative strategies needed to implement FY24 budget'

Innovative strategies are needed to implement the budget's target of keeping inflation at 6 per cent and ambitious revenue collection, economists said today.

The proposed budget for the upcoming 2023-24 financial year has set a much higher revenue target than what is usually possible to collect, they said.

In addition to this, implementing the target to keep inflation at 6 per cent is also a significant challenge for the budget, they added.

The devaluation of the taka against the US dollar and the government's borrowing from the domestic banking sector may continue to exert inflationary pressure.

Therefore, more strategies and commitment are needed now to implement this challenging budget, they opined.

The economists put forth these suggestions at a roundtable on budget analysis organised by the Unnayan Shamannay at the Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled Conference Room of its office in Dhaka.

Former Governor of Bangladesh Bank and Unnayan Shamannay Chair Atiur Rahman presided over the roundtable.

SM Zulfiqar Ali, senior research fellow at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies; Professor AK Enamul Haque, dean at faculty of business and economics at the East West University; Nazneen Ahmed, country economist at the United Nations Development Programme, also spoke.

In the proposed budget, it is stated that 16.56 per cent of the total budget has been allocated for social security.

However, if the allocation for government pensions and development projects is excluded, the share of social security is reduced to 11.6 per cent.

Considering the current economic reality, it is unusual that there are no new social protection programs for the poor and low-income people in urban areas in the budget, said speakers according to a statement.