Govt limits foreign trips for officials of autonomous, semi-govt orgs, state banks

As an austerity measure, the government has now limited non-essential overseas trips for officials of autonomous, state-owned, semi-government organisations, and state-owned banks and financial institutions.

The Ministry of Finance issued a circular in this regard on Monday.

Earlier on May 12, the ministry issued a circular limiting non-essential overseas trips for bureaucrats in the current context of the global crisis and to recover the country’s economy in the post-Covid situation.

The circular banned low priority foreign trips including exposure visits, study tours, APA and innovation tours, and workshops/seminars for all government officials until further notice.

The circular came after Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on May 11 said that government officials would not be allowed to take foreign trips unless deemed essential.

“We have taken a decision in this regard and it has been approved,” he said mentioning that the move comes to avoid unnecessary expenditure to ease pressure on the current foreign currency reserve in the country.

“Our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina clearly instructed government officials not to go for any foreign trips if not essential. The number of government foreign trips will be reduced”, he added.

The move is aimed at safeguarding Bangladesh’s foreign currency reserves, which has come under pressure due to the high volume of imports with the reopening of the economy.

On May 11, Bangladesh’s foreign exchange reverse came down to $41.93 billion. In August last year, it rose to $48 billion.

Though there is robust growth in exports, the higher imports put pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserve.

The Bangladesh Bank data shows import payments rose by 43.8 per cent to $66.498 billion during the July-March period of the current financial year compared to the same period last year.

The current account deficit stood at $14.07 billion in the July-March period of FY22, which was only $555 million in the same period of the previous financial year.

Following that, the demand for dollar increased and the central bank depreciated taka against the US currency by Tk 1.5 between March and May of this year.

The official rate of dollar was Tk 87.5 on Monday, but the unofficial rate was Tk 95-96 due to high demand.

Meanwhile, negative growth in remittance inflows during July-March of the current fiscal year is another concern for the country.

As per BB data, remittance inflows declined by 17.74 per cent to $15.29 billion during July-March of FY22, which was $18.59 billion in the same period of last fiscal year.