The International Monetary Fund staff mission yesterday raised four burning issues in their meetings with the Bangladesh Bank and the finance ministry: foreign currency reserves, inflation, banking sector and revenue collection.

While many other countries have managed to reduce inflationary pressure by adopting monetary policy tools, Bangladeshi policymakers have shied away from doing the same.

The cost-of-living crisis seems to have brought more woes for daily workers in Bangladesh than other groups of labourers as their average wage growth has been below the inflation rate for the past two fiscal years.  

The measures taken in the proposed budget for the next fiscal year have failed to address the most difficult challenge of containing inflation, and as a result, the suffering of common people will increase further, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) said yesterday.