Ahsan Habib

United Commercial Bank (UCB), one of the oldest private banks in Bangladesh, looks to return to sustainable profitability within around two years as it takes steps to improve governance, recover loans, and enhance asset quality.

The stock market has almost closed the books on the fiscal year (FY) 2024-25 without a single company getting listed through an initial public offering (IPO), a rare event not seen in decades.

Most listed companies saw their profits shrink in the January-March period of the current year as stubbornly high inflation pushed up business costs while weak consumer demand held back sales growth.

The government must prioritise boosting the competitiveness of all industries if it wants to create more jobs, capture a bigger share of global markets, and strengthen the economy.

If a company gets listed, it will enjoy tax benefits, and this is one of the major incentives for them to go public.

The finance ministry has identified seven major challenges including tight monetary and fiscal policies, taken to tame elevated inflation levels for more than three years, in next fiscal year that may increase unemployment.

The government expects the country’s economy to cross the $500 billion mark in the fiscal year (FY) 2026-27, buoyed by stabilising policies and sectoral improvements.

The interim government proposed a new framework for social safety net programmes, under which 7.68 crore poor people would receive Tk 37,076 crore next fiscal year to help them cushion the blow from high inflation over the last three years.

The government’s target to provide subsidies and incentives amounting to Tk 125,741 crore in fiscal year 2025-26 is creating high pressure on fund mobilisation amid a challenging macroeconomic situation.

High inflation has become the bane of low-income people’s existence for the better part of the past two years as spiralling prices have dramatically eaten away at their purchasing power.

Bangladesh’s public spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is the lowest among nations on course to graduate from the least developed country (LDC) club.

Budgetary spending increased by 17.5 percent year-on-year in the first nine-month period of the current fiscal year of 2024-25, mainly due to a rise in spending on interest payments and subsidies.

The interim government may widen the gap in the corporate tax paid by listed and non-listed firms from 5 percentage points to 7.50 percentage points in order to attract companies with good performance records into going public.

Debapriya Bhattacharya tells The Daily Star

The US House Budget Committee voted late on Sunday to move forward with President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", a proposal that could make sending money back home more expensive for three lakh Bangladeshis currently living in the United States.

Jobs in Bangladesh are not being created in line with the demand from its youth population, leading to a rise in unemployment despite the urgent need for more job opportunities.

Bangladesh’s approach to budgeting for health and education has come under sharp scrutiny, as decades of allocations have primarily gone towards construction. Meanwhile, the core of these sectors, service delivery, has been historically neglected.

Bangladesh’s upcoming national budget, set to be unveiled by the interim government in June, could mark a rare departure from past fiscal cycles.

Listing of Grameenphone on the stock exchange in 2009 had a huge impact as thousands of investors flocked to open beneficiary owner accounts to get shares of the high-performing company through the initial public offering (IPO).

In a rapidly evolving South Asian trade landscape, HBL Bangladesh (Habib Bank) is carving out a bold and purposeful role for itself – not as a competitor in traditional banking, but as a connector of economies and an enabler of regional trade.