Rejaul Karim Byron

The government yesterday approved a Tk 3,020 crore project -- the biggest ever scheme for farm sector -- to provide price support to farmers in purchasing agricultural machinery.

The government has decided not to purchase new vehicles under all operating and development expenses for the rest of 2020 as part of its austerity measures in face of falling revenues owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

A staggering two-thirds of the 50 lakh poor families hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic are yet to receive Tk 2,500 each in cash support because of the flawed list although they have been languishing in poverty for the last three months.

The government is set to distribute 10-kilogramme rice for free to each of over one crore “ultra-poor and destitute families” ahead of Eid-ul-Azha.

Wage growth slowed to a five-year low in the just-concluded fiscal year driven by the income loss in the manufacturing and services sectors as the coronavirus pandemic-induced shutdown wiped out livelihoods of a major portion of the population in the last quarter.

When the government approved the Khulna-Mongla Port Rail Line project in December 2010, construction of the 64.75km rail line was supposed to be completed within December 2013.

The government is revisiting the idea of using currently healthy foreign currency reserves boosted by the drastic fall in imports and injection of budget support from external sources to bankroll major projects.

Inflation ended the just-concluded fiscal year at 5.65 per cent, slightly overshooting the government’s target of 5.5 per cent, owing to the dragging supply chain disruption caused by the pandemic-induced shutdown.

The government now plans to set up a state-run corporation to buy and trade distressed loans off banks as part of its efforts to clean up the financial sector.

Gross inflow of foreign direct investment to Bangladesh fell 13.8 per cent to $3.73 billion in the first 11 months of last fiscal year, largely owing to the coronavirus pandemic, which came as a shock to foreign investors.

The World Bank has been an ever-reassuring presence in Bangladesh’s growth narrative, and the multilateral lender will continue to play that role, said its country director.

Life expectancy at birth for Bangladeshis has risen to 72.6 years because of what experts said was progress made in health care and economy.

The VAT Intelligence yesterday withdrew its directive that had asked banks to provide information on discrepancies in turnover figures shown by potential borrowers in returns and annual financial statements.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal must have harked back on that oft-quoted saying of English monk John Lydgate when he was finalising the Finance Bill 2020.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal may scrap his plans to raise the supplementary duty (SD) on telecom services and double the deposit in VAT-related disputes following criticism and pleas from various quarters.

Just one year after a rise, Bangladeshi nationals’ deposits in Swiss banks dropped 2.26 percent year-on-year in 2019 to 603 million Swiss francs or Tk 5,427 crore.

Amid growing concern over the slow pace of work of almost all fast track projects due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the government is working to find ways to speed up the schemes.

The budgetary grants rose more than four times to Tk 12,680 crore in the next fiscal year on the back of a large block allocation to meet urgent health and social protection expenses.

Revenue collection fell massively for the second consecutive month in May as incomes and demand for goods and services crashed because of the lengthy shutdown put in place to battle the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taxpayer-guaranteed loans for Biman Bangladesh Airlines more than doubled to Tk 10,279 crore as the state-run carrier took credits to buy new Boeing aircraft.