The government has decided to revise the budget target for the current fiscal year next month, three months ahead of schedule, in the wake of a massive political turbulence and continuous shutdowns enforced by the main opposition BNP.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday said the economic indices might go down in the coming months because of the opposition’s hartals and political unrest, which squeezed the country’s business activities in the past three years.
Both the Fiscal Coordination Council and the Budget Resource Committee on Tuesday decided in their meetings to revise the budget target for this fiscal year earlier. The finance minister chaired the meetings.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman, National Board of Revenue Chairman Ghulam Hussain, Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed, Economic Relation Division Secretary Abul Kalam Azad and other secretaries concerned attended the meetings at the Finance Division.
Usually a fiscal budget is revised in mid-March, the third quarter of the fiscal year.
An official of the planning ministry expressed fear that the country’s economic indices would collapse if the existing political turmoil and violence continued up to next January. Development projects were hampered because of the disruption of communication and commodity supply chain.
Meeting sources said the indices – export growth, dollar’s reserve, remittance and banking liquidities – had been moderate so far, but these would become the worst in the long run because of prolonged political unrest.
At the meeting, Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman sought suggestions from the Finance Division and the commerce ministry on controlling the market, supply and communication chain, but Muhith placed a counter proposal for recommendations from the central bank in this regard.
On the revision of revenue target, NBR Chairman Ghulam Hussain told the meeting that the revision was necessary because the revenue earning target would be hampered by continuous hartals as the incomes of businessmen and common people would go down.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the average inflation fell by 0.10% from 7.03% in October and food inflation rose from 0.45% to 8.38% last month while it was 7.93% in September.
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank have already expressed concerns that the impending street agitation in the run-up to the national election would take a heavy toll on the economy and its growth.
They estimated that the country’s GDP would remain below 6% in the current fiscal year although the finance ministry expected it to grow by 6.6% compared to 6.3% of the previous fiscal year.
The government has a budgetary target of achieving 7.2% GDP growth in the current fiscal year.
