DHAKA, June 6 (Xinhua) -- The Bangladeshi government on Thursday unveiled a record 7.97-trillion-taka (68 billion U.S. dollar) national budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year starting in July.
The government projected an economic growth of 6.75 percent in the annual budget.
"To maintain this growth in the future, all reasonable support will be continued to encourage agricultural and industrial production. Side by side, proper implementation of important infrastructural projects and adoption of appropriate action plans aimed at increasing export earnings and remittances will help achieve the desired GDP growth," said Finance Minister AH Mahmood Ali, presenting to the parliament the proposed 7.97-trillion-taka budget of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government.
"We've successfully managed the adverse effects of COVID-19 on the economy. However, the geopolitical instability of the world has created fresh risks for us," Ali said in the parliament.
Despite all the adversity caused by global unrests, he said Bangladesh managed to achieve 7.10 percent, 5.78 percent and 5.82 percent (provisional) growth in 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24 respectively.
As the total size of the expenditure budget has been estimated at 7.97 trillion taka, the outlay is 14.2 percent of the South Asian country's gross domestic product (GDP).
According to the budget proposal, Bangladesh is targeting an average inflation rate of 6.5 percent in the next fiscal year, although it averaged more than 9 percent in the past two years.
Regarding the optimistic target set forward in his speech for the 2024-25 budget, the finance minister said that the main goal is to limit inflation within 4-5 percent in a Smart Economy.
"Alongside controlling inflation, the budget for this fiscal year has been formulated with an emphasis on ensuring funding for government priority sectors such as poverty alleviation, job creation, social safety net programs, education, health, agriculture, climate change impact mitigation, thereby prioritizing future development trajectories," Ali said.
Amid geopolitical risks, he said the total outlay of the proposed budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year is up by 4.6 percent over that of the original budget of the outgoing fiscal year.
According to the proposal, the overall budget deficit will be 2.56 trillion taka, which is 4.6 percent of GDP.
Ali said the total estimated revenue will be 5.41 trillion taka, which accounts for 9.7 percent of the GDP.
On the expenditure side, he said, the size of Annual Development Program (ADP) for the next fiscal year will be 2.65 trillion taka with transport, power, infrastructure, rural development and education sectors getting the biggest chunk of money.
Of the total ADP outlay of 2,650 billion taka, 1,650 billion taka will come from local sources and the rest from foreign sources.
Earlier in the day, the Bangladeshi cabinet approved the proposed national budget for the fiscal year 2024-25, which is the 54th budget of Bangladesh. (1 U.S. dollar equals to about 117 taka) ■
