The high interest rate remains in the banking sector due to the default loan, says Toufic Ahmad Choudhury, former director general of Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM).
Parliament passes the Tk 5,23,190 crore national budget for 2019-20 fiscal themed as “Bangladesh on a Pathway to Prosperity: Time is Ours, Time for Bangladesh.”
The parliament passes the Finance Bill 2019 with some changes in value-added tax (VAT) and in the policy of capital market and handloom industry.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina describes the proposed budget for FY 2019-20 as people-friendly, development-oriented and balanced one, saying that everyone will be benefitted by the budget as it will help continue the pace of ongoing development.
Lawmakers from treasury and opposition benches lambaste Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal for keeping insufficient allocation for education, health and culture sectors in the proposed budget for 2019-20 fiscal year.
Senior Awami League leader Matia Chowdhury lambastes Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal for increasing tax on family savings certificate from five per cent to 10 per cent in the proposed budget for 2019-20 fiscal.
The National Board of Revenue expects to collect about Tk 11,000 crore more for imposition of VAT on various goods and services and increasing rates on many others, said its officials.
The continuation of concessionary duties on raw material import for motorcycle manufacturers into fiscal 2019-20 would help the fast-growing sector, said market players.
Many importers are not receiving delivery of their goods after five per cent of advance tax (AT) was imposed on almost all kinds of imported goods including raw materials and machinery under the new VAT law.
The new budget is growth-friendly and has set ambitious goals but shied away from addressing the key challenges confronting the economy, said a number of economists in their immediate reactions.
Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) has prepared a report claiming that it has removed most of the 52 substandard food items from the market across the country and filed 52 cases against the companies concerned as per the High Court directives.
In 2010, the government decided to construct a 128-kilometre (km) metre gauge rail track to link Chattogram with tourist town Cox’s Bazar at a cost of Tk 1,852.35 crore.
Mobile phone services are likely to become costlier from today due to increased taxes. The National Board of Revenue sent a regulatory order to the mobile carries to increase the supplementary duty (SD) to 10 percent from 5 from midnight yesterday.
Shifting from its initial plan to slap a uniform rate, the government has finally proposed four rates of Value Added Tax to please businesspeople and take them on board to implement the new VAT law from the next fiscal year.
THE BIG FOUR
The government should support the garment exporters by devaluing taka against US dollar instead of giving them direct cash incentives, two economists said yesterday.
The government has significantly raised the prices of tobacco products to curb consumption.
Rejaul Karim, a college teacher by profession, took a personal loan of Tk 6 lakh at 9.50 percent interest from a private commercial bank in 2015 to tackle some family emergencies.
A look at the revised budget for the outgoing financial year and its state of implementation up to the month of March reconfirm the main weakness of our financial management, namely, the persistently low revenue mobilisation that routinely misses its target.
