Fahmida Khatun

The need for increased fiscal space in the budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021, which is the Covid budget, had been pronounced loudly way before the budget was announced on June 11, 2020. Domestic resource mobilisation by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is the major source of financing the budget. The other sources are borrowing from the banking system, sale of national savings certificates, foreign loans and assistance.

The finance minister of Bangladesh deserves thanks for presenting the national budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021 at a time when the implications of Covid-19 (C19) pandemic is dire.

The budget for fiscal year (FY) 2021 is going to be presented in the backdrop of a situation which was previously not experienced in the history of Bangladesh.

The coronavirus pandemic has bluntly exposed how a large number of people across the world are susceptible to health and economic shocks.

Increasing allocation for the health sector is a common and justified demand in Bangladesh. With an allocation of 0.9 percent of gross domestic product and less than five percent of total budget expenditure the country has very little healthcare investment for its citizens.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic we have begun to analyse, forecast and speculate the impact on economies, societies, political systems, governance mechanisms, and on many more areas.

To support the COVID-19 affected economy, some experts are suggesting that the government of Bangladesh should go for printing money. However, I feel that there is no need to take such a radical measure since Bangladesh has a number of policy tools at its hand at the moment to heat up the economy.

Bangladesh has been under lockdown since March 25, 2020 to control the spread of coronavirus.

As the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on Bangladesh economy is becoming apparent in many ways, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced a second stimulus package for the affected sectors on April 5, 2020.

Since December 8, 2019, when a first known case of pneumonia with unknown aetiology was found in Wuhan City, China, the world has been badly tangled up in the novel coronavirus or Covid-19.

Throughout the world, governments of various countries are taking extraordinary measures to deal with the crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amidst the rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe, Bangladesh seems to be one of the least affected countries with only five identified cases as of March 15, 2020.

The campaign for International Women’s Day 2020 is #EachForEqual. This signifies how important it is for everyone to play a role in establishing women’s equality. An equal society is an empowered society.

Recent newspaper reports indicate that the finance minister is taking an initiative to form a Banking Commission. This is a welcome move.

As we step into a new decade, Bangladesh’s economy is also entering new terrains. Since independence, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) has been on the rise.

Bangladesh began 2019 with a renewed hope that its newly elected government would bring in political and economic changes as promised in its election manifesto.

Following a rather relatively quiet national elections in December 2018, the year 2019 began with the hope of doing better in economic fronts.

Every time I travel to a developed country, I observe new ways of doing things. I find that human interaction has become unnecessary in getting services.

While Bangladesh is feted for being one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a growth rate of 8.13 percent in fiscal year 2018-19, its banking sector is in the grip of despair.

Creating employment for its large young population is one of the major policy challenges in Bangladesh at this moment. According to the Labour Force Survey 2016-17 of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the national unemployment rate is 4.2 per cent. However,