Muhith to unveil FY2015-16 budget Thursday
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith is expected to unveil the national budget for 2015-16 fiscal year (FY16) at the Jatiya Sangsad at 3pm Thursday.
This will be the country's 44th budget and the 16th of the Awami League government while the 9th for Muhith, BSS reports.
Last year, the finance minister announced that the budget would have the mechanism and the dynamism for luring growth fostering investment and reducing income disparity to bring more people out of poverty.
This year, he would draw the salient features of the budget with the major targets of raising GDP (gross domestic product) growth with maintaining price stability, enhancing the rate of investment, and improving the power and energy, and physical infrastructure further with special attention to human resources development.
When Muhith was crafting the national budget for FY16, skepticism about the prospect of the economy was high because of the unprecedented violent activities, unleashed in the country in the name of politics.
Amidst the nearly three-month long deliberately created political turbulence, the finance minister showed his high optimism saying confidently and repeatedly that the political unrest would not hurt the economy as much as many apprehended.
Subsequently, economic data and estimate by the World Bank and some think-tanks including the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CDP) proved that the finance minister was right.
Invalidating all doubts and forecasts, the country's economy achieved 6.51 percent growth in the out-going 2014-15 fiscal (FY15), and the finance minister justifiably came up with the conclusion that the country's economy became capable of absorbing not only the external shocks, but also got the strength to triumph over the domestic drawbacks.
Muhith announced that he would take a different approach this year in the national budget and the fiscal policy to achieve the targeted growth in the economy.
The minister already hinted that the target for GDP growth would be set at 7.2 to 7.3 percent for FY16 when he would focus on human resource development for driving economy to a higher growth trajectory.