Rejaul Karim Byron

During its visit to Dhaka, the International Monetary Fund’s review mission will focus on Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reserves, inflation rate, banking sector, and revenue reforms.

In the last decade, the debt-to-GDP ratio rose by 13 percentage points. The IMF forecasts that the ratio will reach 43.5 percent in 2028-29.

A top official of the ministry said the government would increase the number of beneficiaries in two major schemes – the old age allowance and the allowance for widows, deserted, or destitute women.

With inflation edging towards double digits and quarterly GDP growth nearly halving year on year, pressure on consumers is mounting and experts are pointing at even darker clouds.

Last week, the finance division issued a circular asking all ministries and divisions to send by April 29 their budget proposals for 2024-2025 and their expenditure plans for the following two financial years to help prepare the midterm budgetary framework.

The ministry of power, energy and mineral resources has sought the undisbursed subsidy at the earliest to continue with uninterrupted electricity supply during the summer months.

The government plans to design a Tk 7,96,900 crore outlay in the new budget with a focus on tight spending policy as economic headwinds are expected to persist in the next fiscal year.

The interest costs for domestic loans increased 13.58 percent to Tk 42,313 crore while the same for foreign credits surged 195.81 percent to Tk 7,910 crore.

Bangladesh’s access to cheap loans is closing in with its rising per capita income, making foreign borrowing costlier.

Around 3.77 crore people experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in 2023, according to a survey by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

The private sector's short-term foreign debt repayment surpassed new loans in 2023, in a complete reverse of the trend seen in previous years.

The Planning Commission has identified seven hurdles standing in the way of the smooth implementation of foreign-funded projects, a move that may go on to help the government avoid unnecessary delays and save money.

US rating agency Moody’s Investors Service yesterday changed its outlook for Bangladesh’s banking system to stable from negative, which will relieve the central bank boss of stress.

The government is going to start implementing the newly-formulated mechanism for setting fuel prices in line with global market rates by the end of this month and officials of the energy and finance division believe prices may reduce after the first adjustment.

The government has at last introduced the automated fuel pricing mechanism that will see the domestic fuel prices adjust in line with the prices in the international market every month.

The government has decided to increase electricity prices by Tk 0.34 and Tk 0.70 a unit from March, which according to experts will have a domino effect on the prices of essentials ahead of Ramadan.

The World Bank has recommended Bangladesh put in place a unified exchange rate and tighten monetary policy further in order to tame persistently high inflationary pressure and end the foreign exchange crisis.

When Bangladesh is facing a reserve squeeze, it has received fresh commitments for $7.2 billion in loans from global lenders in the first seven months of fiscal 2023-24, a fourfold increase from a year earlier.

Foreign loan repayment, which was hovering around $3 billion since fiscal 2012-13, crossed the $4 billion-mark for the first time last fiscal year on the back of high interest payments and short-term loans in the power and energy sector.

Bangladesh’s gross domestic product grew 5.78 percent in the last financial year, one of the slowest paces of expansion in 13 years, as consumption nosedived, according to the final figures published by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).