Bangladesh finance minister likely to place Tk 6,78,064-cr FY23 budget

The original budget size of the outgoing fiscal was around 17.5 per cent of the GDP.

The next budget aims at attaining a GDP growth rate of 7.5 per cent based on the positive trend of economic recovery from the pandemic and containing inflation at 5.6 per cent.

This will be the country's 51st budget and the 23rd of the Awami League government in five terms, Bangladeshi media reported.

The price of essentials commodities in the country is hurting the masses and the taka is constantly devaluating against the US dollar. The import of luxurious items has been discouraged to reduce the pressure on foreign currency reserves.

To give respite from the heat of high inflation trend, the government is focusing on reining in inflation through increasing subsidies.

To meet the demand for this huge budget size, the government has set an overall revenue collection target of taka 4,33,000 crore—9.8 per cent of the GDP. The overall revenue collection target in FY22 was earlier set at taka 3,89,000 crore—11.3 per cent of the GDP, according to Bangladeshi media reports.

Finance division officials said the next budget is likely to set a budget deficit target of 5.5 per cent of the GDP or taka 2,45,064 crore, estimated at taka 30,383 crore higher than the original budget deficit of taka 2,14,681 crore in the outgoing fiscal. The budget deficit in FY22 was earlier set at 6.2 per cent of the GDP.

In the fresh budget, the government is likely to earmark taka 82,745 crore as subsidy in various sectors—1.9 per cent of the GDP. In the revised budget of FY22, subsidies were estimated at taka 66,825 crore, or 1.7 per cent of the GDP.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)