Economic growth target to be set lower due to pandemic: Finance minister

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has said the next budget will be placed before the national parliament on June 11 unless the country’s existing coronavirus situation deteriorates further. However, the gross domestic product (GDP) growth target for the next fiscal might have to be set lower due to the Covid-19 situation.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also gave her consent in this regard, the finance minister told The Business Post over the phone. Mustafa Kamal had a meeting on upcoming budget with the premier at Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday.

To maintain physical distance during this pandemic, Mustafa Kamal said, his ministry is now working on budget preparation via online means.

Kamal said the government is considering a two-month provisional budget, which also includes stimulus packages and other development expenses, just in case the pandemic situation worsens.

Earlier, an official of finance ministry said GDP growth target for the next fiscal year was likely to be set at 6 percent -- 2.2 percent lower than the original growth target of 8.2 percent for the current fiscal year.

Top officials of the Finance Division, the National Board of Revenue (NBR), and the Bangladesh Bank were also present at the yesterday’s meeting.

An official who attended the meeting said different programmes will be taken in the next 2020-21 fiscal budget to overcome the pandemic effects and to rehabilitate affected industries and poor people.

In the budget, he said, a strategy will be set to raise revenue collection by not increasing tax burden on health, agriculture and rural development.

The size of the next budget can be Tk5.62lakh crore and the revenue collection target can be Tk3.95 lakh crore, he said. 

Of the Tk3.95 lakh crore revenue target, Tk3.30 lakh crore will come from tax under the NBR, while the remaining Tk65,000 crore will come from tax outside the NBR and the revenue sectors without tax.

The finance ministry also expects to get Tk5,000 crore foreign donation in the next fiscal year, he added.

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