Speakers at a webinar on Sunday put emphasis on further widening the tax net, facilitating private investment, further improvement in ease of doing business and ensuring quality government expenditure, especially in health, education, agriculture and in social safety nets.
They also stressed need for bringing the country's people under COVID-19 vaccination in a speedy manner to save the lives and livelihood amid the pandemic situation as slow pace in vaccination can jeopardize Bangladesh's major export destinations.
They came up with such views in a webinar titled ‘Reflections on the Budget 2021-22’ organized jointly by the Economic Reporters’ Forum (ERF), Research Policy Integration for Development (RAPID) and The Asia Foundation (TAF) held in Zoom Platform today.
Planning Minister MA Mannan attended the event as the chief guest while FBCCI President Md. Jashim Uddin and BGMEA President Faruque Hassan joined the event as the guests of honor.
Chairman of RAPID Dr. Mohammad Abdur Razzaque attended the webinar as discussant while Executive Director of RAPID Dr. Abu Eusuf presented the Keynote paper.
ERF President Sharmeen Rinvy presided the event while ERF General Secretary SM Rashidul Islam moderated it. Echoing with the FBCCI President that the country's exports might be affected if the people could not be vaccinated in a speedy manner, the Planning Minister said : "Vaccine is a very important matter, there is no doubt that these vaccines should be brought into the country as soon as possible. If we can't attain herd immunity, then our export destination will not come closer to us, rather those will go away,"
Mannan said he would also carry forward this message to the highest level of the government.
Referring to the issue of creation of new poor in the country due to the pandemic, Mannan said various research firms like SANEM, PPRC, PRI are showing the number of new poor in between one crore to five crore and there is a large variation.
"However, we'll have to address the issue, we'll have to sharpen our instruments to address the issue. We admit it and we are committed intellectually, morally and in all possible ways to address the issue," he said adding that the new poor are not forgotten. FBCCI President Md Jashim Uddin said that the country is still going through the pandemic where the utmost priority should be saving lives and then maintaining the livelihood. "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her government is doing the right thing in this regard. Vaccination is very much important as the whole world, especially the Europe and America is now moving fast with vaccination. If we can't keep pace, then we'll fall into trouble and our exports will be stopped,"
BGMEA president Faruque Hassan said that the economy of Bangladesh has performed very good compared to other countries despite the COVID-19 pandemic due to the resilience in inward remittance and exports.
He, however, noted that there was no such private Investment in the country over the last one and a half year due to this deadly virus. He said without such huge level of private investment, there would not be necessary employment generations.
Dr Abdur Razzaque said that the proposed budget is a bit tough to understand it while the issue of the pandemic has not been properly reflected in it.
Dr Abu Eusuf in his key-note presentation suggested for changing the fiscal year from the existing July to June considering the weather and climate of the country.
