Flats and houses will become expensive as the government has increased the duties on basic construction materials such as cement, steel and tiles in the proposed budget, said a top executive of a real estate company.
The tax on digital payments tools should be reduced and incentives should be given to encourage electronic payments in a bid to transform the country into a cashless society, said Syed Mohammad Kamal, country manager of Mastercard.
The government should adjust the budget expenses by cutting the allocation under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) and bringing down operating costs in order to contain inflation, said Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute.
If we choose only 10 commodities and measure inflation, the figure will land at no less than 20 percent.
The extension of existing benefits for local consumer electronics industries through the proposed national budget is very encouraging, said Golam Murshed, managing director and chief executive officer of Walton Hi-Tech Industries, yesterday.
The government’s budget should focus on developing inland waterways with a view to cutting goods transportation costs and reducing pressure on roadways, said the top executive of a logistics and container terminal operations management company.
Bangladesh’s budget deficit forecasted by the government for the next fiscal year could be at risk if the growth undershoots the authorities’ relatively optimistic target, said Fitch Ratings.
Just a year ago, Aminur Rahman, a private sector employee living in Dhaka, could buy a moderate amount of essential goods, including rice, soybean oil, onions, salt and eggs, at Tk 553 from stores in Dhaka city
Says Sanem Executive Director Selim Raihan
In June last year when Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the budget in parliament, inflation had already been creeping up and the foreign currency reserves were on the decline. These two had derailed the full economic recovery from a two-year crisis wrought by the Covid pandemic.
Sharper, flexible and timely coordination among fiscal, monetary and trade policies of Bangladesh will yield improved stabilisation outcomes, said Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
Bangladesh is enjoying a big rise in overall agricultural production as it had increased public expenditure on the sector in the outgoing fiscal year of 2022-23, said Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, chairman and chief executive officer of Pran-RFL Group.
The upcoming budget should target containing inflationary pressure to provide much-needed relief to consumers and be business-friendly to help the business community overcome the crisis stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war, said a number of businessmen and economists yesterday.
What is the national budget? What is the history of the budget? Since when did the government start using the budget as a tool to manage the income and expenditure of a country and provide funds for development expenditures? And how did Bangladesh's budget increase to this existing volume?
