Bangladesh sets sights on a 6.75-percent economic growth in the next financial year basically by boosting domestic production of agricultural and industrial sectors with continued support assured in the new national budget.
Presenting the budget for the fiscal year (FY) 2024-25 in parliament Thursday, the finance minister appeared rather upbeat-notwithstanding multifaceted economic challenges locally and globally-in announcing that the government is expecting to go on a higher trajectory of gross domestic product (GDP) growth subsequently: at 7.25 per cent in the medium term, or in the subsequent fiscal year.
"It is expected that pursuing all the prudent policy measures will help achieve the GDP growth," the finance minister, Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali, said in his budget-placement speech.
"To maintain this growth in future, all reasonable supports will be continued to encourage agricultural and industrial production," he said, while listing a slew of headwinds blowing internally and externally on the economic front.
"Side by side, proper implementation of important infrastructural projects and adoption of appropriate action plan aimed at increasing export earnings and remittances will be helpful for achieving the desired GDP growth," Mr Ali told the House while rolling out his maiden budget as finance minister with a Tk 7.97-trillion outlay.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh has been estimated to grow at 5.82 per cent in the outgoing fiscal year (FY2023-24) in a fall from even the pared-down revised target of 6.5 per cent, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)'s latest provisional data showed.
The government had taken an ambitious target of 7.5-percent economic growth for the current FY2024 despite the internal and external headwinds facing the macroeconomic field-like inflation, currency devaluation, export-remittance slowdown, and depletion of forex reserves.
According to the 2023 GDP estimation, Bangladesh is the 33rd largest economy in the world.
The new minister in charge of the exchequer holds hope for advances through navigating all this. "Despite all the barriers, we are trying to maintain the momentum of economic and GDP growth."
In his upbeat budget speech -- attuned to party manifesto for building a developed Bangladesh through its LDC graduation in 2026 -- he said: "Our fiscal policy is being planned taking into consideration the global instability and tension in international trade and commerce."
The budget for FY2025 has been formulated with a view to accelerating the growth of the economy to prepare for LDC graduation and reach the status of upper-middle-income nation, creating new jobs, sustaining GDP growth, promoting local industries, increasing investment through protection and trade facilitation, developing export-oriented and heavy industrial enterprises and promoting 'Made-in-Bangladesh' concept, the northerner told lawmakers to applause.
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