Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday presented parts of the national budget as Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal fell sick halfway through his speech.

In a push to widen the social safety net, the government decided to include all registered differently abled people, and more marginalised and vulnerable ones under its protection.

The government has resorted to deficit financing, largely through bank borrowing and sale of high-cost savings certificates, increasing the interest payment burden on its shoulders and fuelling inflation.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday proposed doubling the subsidy for the gas sector to Tk 9,600 crore for 2019-20, from Tk 4,500 crore in the previous year.

All eyes were on fever-stricken Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal as he stepped into parliament to unveil his maiden national budget yesterday.

More than a year ago, when Mohammad Zayed graduated from a university college in the capital, his family started expecting that he would soon take over the financial responsibility.

The new budget is growth-friendly and has set ambitious goals but shied away from addressing the key challenges confronting the economy, said a number of economists in their immediate reactions.

The proposed budget is an ambitious one. We expect clear guidelines and plans from the government how this budget is going to be implemented, given the fact that weak implementation of budget has become a norm in recent years. It is important to highlight how the performance of different ministries will be improved to implement this proposed budget.

The government has significantly raised the price of tobacco products, including cigarette and bidi, which is a major public health concern in Bangladesh, in a bid to restraint tobacco consumption and surge revenue collection.

It has become a tradition for the budget to be increased every year by 17-18 percent so this year, there was no reason to expect this to change. Generally, Bangladesh’s budget has maintained a sectoral balance in its stance, giving priority to education, agriculture, infrastructure and social sector expenditures.

The cost of mobile phone usage is going up from tonight as the national board of revenue has already sent statuary regulatory order (SRO) to all mobile phone operators soon after placing the proposed national budget for 2019-20 fiscal in the parliament.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, in his budget speech, has projected the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate at 8.2 per cent in the proposed national budget for 2019-20 fiscal.

Find the pie charts for the national budget for fiscal year 2019-20 that Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has placed in the parliament.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) says the national budget for the 2019-20 was not placed in light of the real situation on the ground.

The price of gold will go down as a reduction of duty on its import has been proposed in the budget for fiscal year 2019-20.

BNP Standing Committee Member Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury says that the government has kept Tk 145,380 crore deficit in the proposed national budget for 2019-20 fiscal which will be realised from people anyhow.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal proposes changes to duties on different products, which will result in increase and decrease in their prices.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal says tax offices will be set up in every upazila of the country.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has vowed to raise the tax-GDP ratio to 15 percent in two years from present 10 percent, a move that needs a lot of efforts and investments from the government to achieve.

Import of smartphones will be costlier as supplementary duty is proposed to be raised by two and half times to 25 per cent from its existing 10 per cent in the proposed budget.