Rejaul Karim Byron

It seems the government is doing an about-turn from the austerity stance taken at the start of the fiscal year.

Scaling up public food distribution programmes for the poor and the vulnerable is the need of the hour -- given the cost of living crisis. But the government seems to be shying away from stepping up to this task.

The prospective loan programme of the International Monetary Fund will prime Bangladesh for graduation from the least-developed country bracket and reach middle-income country status by 2031, said the lender’s top official.

There would not be any further negotiations on the $4.5 billion loan programme during International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director Antoinette Monsio Sayeh’s forthcoming visit to Bangladesh.

The World Bank yesterday delivered yet another bad news for the economy as the Washington-based multilateral lender pared back Bangladesh’s growth forecast for this fiscal year by 1.5 percent to 5.2 percent.

Two of the government’s 28 Covid-19 stimulus packages saw a fresh injection of Tk 50,000 crore in the ongoing financial year, but only 4 per cent of the fund was disbursed between July and October.   

The maiden tax amnesty offered by the government to bring back laundered money home has seemed to have brought no result since none secured the facility in the first six months of the current fiscal year.

The financial account of the balance of payments (BoP) turned negative in the first five months of the current fiscal year, highlighting the challenges Bangladesh is facing in protecting its foreign currency reserves from depletion as funds outflows exceeded inflows. 

Bangladesh has agreed to as many as 30 conditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the $4.5 billion loan programme that includes some key structural reforms stalled for years.

The government has taken a fresh initiative to import rice amid concerns that the domestic procurement target during the ongoing Aman season might not be achieved. 

A retired secondary school teacher in Satkhira not entitled to pensions had planned to use a portion of other service benefits to purchase savings certificates to meet some of his family expenses with the interest income.  

The state coffers were robbed of Tk 258 crore for 26 counts of irregularities by the Chattogram Port Authority between fiscal 2017-18 and 2019-20, found the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

Although Bangladesh stepped into a new year with various economic pressures stemming from global events, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said he was confident that the country would not backtrack but make steady progress from where it was now. 

The government has trimmed its growth forecast for this fiscal year by a whole percentage point to 6.5 percent as the energy shortage and inflation dampened economic activities.

The government has retreated from its decision to develop a portion of Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City in Gazipur’s Kaliakoir on a public-private partnership (PPP) model due to lukewarm response from developers. 

The finance division has strictly asked ministries and divisions not to demand any additional money beyond the amount allocated this year.

After the prime minister’s directive, the Finance Division yesterday asked the authorities to cut government spending on land acquisition, building construction, and machinery purchase.

The eight fast track projects being implemented by the government are seeing mixed progress with four having made significant progress as of November this year while the rest may not see timely completion.

The central bank is set to return to its semiannual monetary policy stance after three years as per a suggestion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) but local economists say the move would not bring about any change amid the lending rate cap and multiple exchange rates. 

Unusual investment decisions made by the state-run Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) could inflict a loss of Tk 438 crore on taxpayers as the funds have either turned into default loans or remained largely unrealised, according to an audit report.