Finance Minister Mahmood Ali said on Saturday that the country's economy could be brought back to the pre-Covid state by implementing the fiscal measures proposed in the budget for the FY2025.
Delivering his closing speech on the proposed national budget in parliament, he expressed the hope that the budget implementation would help continue the ongoing development spree aimed at materialising the Vision 2041.
While formulating the budget for 2024-25 fiscal year, the minister said, he had undergone a 'difficult' task of balancing between expansion and contraction to help maintain the growth momentum and also contain the inflation.
Listing the fiscal policies to curb inflation, he said repo rate was enhanced to 8.55 per cent, the interest rate was made market-based, and crawling peg system was introduced for a foreign exchange rate.
All these steps would help keep inflation by 6.5 per cent in the next fiscal year, he expressed the hope.
The minster also said that for the last one and half decades the country has been enjoying over 6.7-percent GDP growth and it has emerged as the 33th largest economy in the world.
In line with the electoral manifesto of the Awami League, massive steps were taken to improve the social and physical infrastructure, agriculture and food production to ensure food security and to shore up resource mobiisaton, the minister pointed out.
Through these initiatives, the country would achieve the GDP target of 6.7 per cent in the midterm. The growth rate will reach 7.25 per cent, he added. Mr Ali said that the per-capita income would reach 12,500 dollar by 2041 and the poverty rate would come down to zero per cent.
Due to the inclusive economic policy, the government has been able to reduce the poverty rate to 18.7 per cent from 31.5 per cent, he mentions.
The finance minister also said that the allocation for the social safety net is 12.3-percent higher in the proposed budget and a massive food rationing programme is going on to let the low-income people enable to absorb the shock of the high commodity prices. He stated that a lot of measures are taken to make the tax administration efficient and people-friendly.
Several laws have been enacted in this regard - of which the Customs Act has been amended recently.
In the six ministries, online databases are installed to make the collection of indirect taxes more effective, he said.
The minister said that he had held consultations with different stakeholders group before formulating the budget and sought their help in implementing the proposed budget.
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