The proposed budget for the 2020-21 fiscal year has focused on the protection of the people from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed over a thousand lives and pushed the economic activities to halt, the finance minister has said.
In the post-budget press briefing on Friday, AHM Mustafa Kamal said this time it is very important to stand by poor people as they are facing huge difficulties caused by the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic.
He said people need to be fed and those who have lost their jobs need to be given jobs and medical treatment. “We’ve given importance to these issues in next year's budget.”
The minister admitted that the budget for the next FY, beginning on July 1, is ambitious but said he believes there will be no problems in mobilising fund for implementing it.
“It will be seen later where the money will come from. First we want to spend. We will earn later,” he told a questioner in the virtual press briefing.
Kamal placed the Tk 568,000 crore (5.68 trillion) proposed national budget in the Jatiya Sangsad on Thursday afternoon with a target of attaining 8.2 percent GDP growth amid Covid-19 pandemic situation.
He said in the briefing that the government has focused on the thinking of the IMF, World Bank, other organisations and experts and took their opinions into consideration while preparing the budget.
The minister said the proposed budget was formulated prioritising what the world is thinking about Bangladesh in the context of global coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve prioritised two aspects -- our glorious economic achievement before the coronavirus pandemic and now, after the pandemic, we are considering what the world is thinking about our economy,” he said.
He expressed the hope that the government will be able to implement the budget just as it has been formulated.
The minister said the government has deviated slightly this year from the traditional budget for the sake of effectively combating the deadly coronavirus and resolutely overcoming its economic impact.
“A structural change has been brought in this year’s budget in terms of setting the priorities of the government,” he said adding that the health sector has been given the highest priority and provisions have been made for the sector in the form of additional allocation, incentives and compensations.
Kamal said agriculture sector has got the second highest priority. “To boost food production, we will lay emphasis on farm mechanisation, incentives for irrigation and seeds and rehabilitation of agriculture, and continue to provide subsidies on fertilisers.”
Citing the contribution of agriculture to the advancement of civilisation, he said, “We want to move forward depending on the agricultural civilisation.”
“That [agriculture] is our root. I will develop agriculture in such a way that we can build the economy by relying on agriculture. We can attain further achievements,” he added.
This year’s is the second budget of Awami League’s third successive term in power and the second one for Mustafa Kamal as the finance minister.
The budget size has increased by 44,810 crore, or around 7.9 percent, from the outgoing fiscal year’s around Tk 523,190 crore.
The Finance Minister said, “Hopefully, we will be able to implement this budget the way we have arranged it. We expect that the coronavirus won’t not last long.”
“The IMF said we will achieve 9.5 percent growth in the 2020-21 fiscal year. So, we believe we can implement a budget of Tk 5,68,000 crore,” he said adding that, we have already built the physical infrastructure.
Citing revenue earning much lower in proportion to GDP, Kamal said that revenue collection can be exceed projection thorough automation.
“We can even surpass the target if we can earn 15-16 percent of the GDP,” he added.
Explaining the huge budget, Mustafa Kamal said, “I know this budget is different, as I said before.”
“Since the normal path was closed for us due to corona crisis, we had to do the work in a different way,” he informed.
Many may see the proposed budget "dissonant", he said adding they had no other way too.
The minister said they lacked necessary data to prepare the budget. "It has been prepared on the basis of our past experience and achievements and also by taking into account the views of domestic and foreign think tanks, including the IMF and the World Bank.
"But we can implement it because of the way it has been designed," he mentioned.
He further said the country's economy grew faster than all other countries in the past 10 years while the nation's per capita income was one of the best worldwide in the last five years. Only India and China were ahead.
We have taken these achievements into consideration, he informed.
“I have taken into consideration what the whole world is thinking about us after being infected with corona. We have prepared this budget with everyone's opinion,” he said.
