Govt hopes to overcome challenges of Covid-19 pandemic by FY2023

The government is contemplating the next fiscal year 2022-23 as its last year to overcome the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, reports UNB.
According to the budget document, the government will continue the initiatives taken to address Covid-19 and sustain economic recovery in the coming fiscal year.
However, as the context of the crisis changes, it will change its priorities too, the document reads.
As per the document, in the first year of the crisis, the priorities were to build the health sector's capacity, provide food and humanitarian assistance to the low-income people who have suddenly become unemployed, and provide urgent assistance to sustain production and employment in key economic sectors such as the agriculture and exports.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in his budget speech last week claimed that the government successfully tackled the challenges of the first year through the rapid expansion of specialised Covid treatment in government management, recruitment of additional physicians and health workers, and humanitarian assistance activities for low-income people.
In the second year, after the initial shock, the priority was shifted to bringing everyone under the vaccination programme and supporting the industry and services sector to ensure economic recovery at a faster pace.
"We successfully achieved the target in the second year by bringing almost all citizens above 12 years of age under the vaccination programme and successfully implementing incentive packages for the industry and services sectors," the finance minister said in his budget speech in Parliament on June 9.
Now, in the third year of the pandemic, as per the document, the priority will be to sustain the economic recovery by maintaining the trend of income generation and job creation and thus put the economy on a solid foundation.
Therefore, the government will continue to implement incentive programmes in the next fiscal year, the document stated.
At the same time, the government will provide all kinds of policy support to all the important sectors of the economy including banks, financial institutions, and business enterprises in the industrial and service sectors so that they can fully overcome the effects of the pandemic.
As per the document, considering the macroeconomic indicators, it is clear that Bangladesh has successfully overcome the adverse economic impact of the COVID-19.
In the first wave of the pandemic from April to May 2020, industrial production was somewhat disrupted, but from July 2020, it began to turn around sharply.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the monthly industrial production index returned to the pre- COVID level by November 2020.
During the second wave in May- August, 2021, industrial production was again somewhat stagnated, but in 2021, industrial production was able to maintain strong overall growth.
Another important factor behind the rapid economic recovery from the COVID pandemic is the successful implementation of vaccination programmes.
Despite various challenges in the global supply of vaccines, the government has been able to procure the required doses from various alternative sources and has been able to successfully administer two doses of vaccines to almost all citizens of the country above 12 years of age in just one year.
Bangladesh is currently in the process of providing booster doses.
There are two more important aspects of success in vaccination. The first is that the government did not allow any vaccine to be used in Bangladesh without the approval of the World Health Organization. This means that all COVID-19 vaccines used in the country are approved by the WHO as effective and safe.