Just a year ago, Aminur Rahman, a private sector employee living in Dhaka, could buy a moderate amount of essential goods, including rice, soybean oil, onions, salt and eggs, at Tk 553 from stores in Dhaka city

Says economist MM Akash

Says economist Zahid Hussain 

Says Sanem Executive Director Selim Raihan

In June last year when Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the budget in parliament, inflation had already been creeping up and the foreign currency reserves were on the decline. These two had derailed the full economic recovery from a two-year crisis wrought by the Covid pandemic.

Says DCCI chief Sameer Sattar

Sharper, flexible and timely coordination among fiscal, monetary and trade policies of Bangladesh will yield improved stabilisation outcomes, said Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue.

Bangladesh is enjoying a big rise in overall agricultural production as it had increased public expenditure on the sector in the outgoing fiscal year of 2022-23, said Ahsan Khan Chowdhury, chairman and chief executive officer of Pran-RFL Group. 

The upcoming budget should target containing inflationary pressure to provide much-needed relief to consumers and be business-friendly to help the business community overcome the crisis stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war, said a number of businessmen and economists yesterday.

What is the national budget? What is the history of the budget? Since when did the government start using the budget as a tool to manage the income and expenditure of a country and provide funds for development expenditures? And how did Bangladesh's budget increase to this existing volume?

The Bangladesh government presents the national budget every June. The national budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 will be announced soon.

Despite being the last budget before the next general election, the government has little scope to unveil a big spending plan for the next fiscal year owing to limited fiscal space driven by lower-than-expected revenue collection, a noted economist said.

For the first time, domestic air travellers are likely to face a travel tax while people going abroad on airplanes are expected to pay up to 67 per cent higher taxes from next fiscal year as the government looks to increase revenue collection. 

The health ministry continues to struggle with utilisation of funds allocated in the national budget, like it did in the past few years.

The allocation for subsidies in agriculture, food, and power will be raised considerably in the next budget, with an aim to ease inflationary pressure on people.

The income tax provision that requires companies to pay 0.6 per cent tax on their gross receipt even after losses is contradictory to the spirit of income tax law, said Mostafa Kamal, chairman and managing director of Meghna Group of Industries (MGI).

"Mobile sales have dropped drastically due to the economic downturn for people. Handset sales dropped by over 40 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023"

Sustaining the development that has taken place in Bangladesh in the past 14 years and curbing inequality are key major challenges facing the economy owing to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, said Planning Minister MA Mannan.

The government is going to unveil a Tk 7,61,785 crore budget for the next fiscal year on Thursday, setting containment of high inflation as a major target.

The tax authority, for the first time, is going to engage individuals to help new taxpayers file tax return in a bid to increase compliance and narrow the gap between registered taxpayers and regular return filers.