As Finance Minister AMA Muhith is set to announce the national budget later this week, people's expectation and speculation prompted that the next fiscal policy and outlay should draw their future dreams with cautious evaluation of past successes and failures, reports BSS.
Mr Muhith has already announced that the coming budget, to be placed in the Jatiya Sangsad Thursday, June 5, would have mechanism and dynamism for luring growth-fostering investment and reducing income disparity to bring more people out of poverty.
Three issues - growth, investment and poverty - would likely to get priority in the next fiscal policy and allocation as Mr Muhith at pre-budget discussions clearly put special attention to changing economic status of the country from low to middle-income group by 2021.
Economists, think-tanks and development partners, however, cautioned the finance minister that the economy in the next few years would bump into some major challenges. One of the challenges is driving forward the country's industrial sector by continuously attracting domestic and foreign investments.
The finance minister hinted that the new budget would have incentive packages like lower corporate tax to spur investment in various growth supporting sectors including in basic infrastructure.
Besides, the budget would have both policy and financial supports for developing some special economic zones in the country to attract long-term investment.
The next budget for the first time would have the highest allocation for reshaping and developing the basic infrastructure of the country, which was badly damaged by pre-election violence of BNP-led opposition political alliance.
The finance minister at pre-budget meetings assured that the fiscal policy would persistently cushion productive sectors with continuing support of incentives while it would have enough mechanism to safeguard the interest of local industries and entrepreneurs without hindering progressive liberalisation of trade.
At the same time, he would showcase how much the government would do for the common people to curb income disparity. To this effect, he would incorporate some mechanisms like higher wealth tax and upper tax-free income ceiling to curb income disparity, which is vital to poverty reduction and inclusive growth.
The finance minister already indicated that the size of the national budget would be around Tk 2.50 trillion, significantly higher than the revised budget of Tk 2.11 trillion of the outgoing fiscal year (FY 2013-14). The original size of the FY '14 budget was Tk 2.22 trillion.
Meanwhile, the National Economic Council (NEC) on May 20 approved the Annual Development Programme (ADP) of Tk 860 billion for the FY '15, projecting more than 32 per cent growth over the revised ADP of Tk 600 billion for the current fiscal year.
The original size of the ADP for FY '14 was 658.70 billion.
