Next budget to focus on employment generation: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said that the next national budget would put higher emphasis on employment generation, while efforts to carry out reforms in different fields needed to continue.

"Well have to increase employment generation to a larger extent as efforts are underway to overcome the foreign currency reserve issue," he said.

The minister was talking to reporters Sunday night after holding a long pre-budget meeting for FY25 (fiscal year 2024-25) with the countrys renowned economists at State Guest House Padma.
Ali said the eminent economists present at the meeting had put forward a set of good suggestions while all of them opined that the government was moving in the right direction to overcome the current economic situation.

"Ive never said there is no problem. But, weve got praise that weve been handling the situation well and so far everything is good," he said.

"Everyone knows what the underlying problems are ... so they [economists] have remarked that everything is well so far, but weve to remain cautious about the problems," he added.

When asked about their specific suggestions, the finance minister said the ongoing reforms initiatives should be continued in various fields.

Replying to another question on publishing the list of loan defaulters following the suggestions of the economists, he said, "Lets see what we can do."

Ali also said the vice-president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in a recent meeting with him had assured that they are ready to provide more financial support to Bangladesh.

"They [AIIB] informed us that the fund is ready..." he said.

Emerging from the meeting, eminent economist and former central bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed said the main thing in the budget should be macroeconomic stability.

He suggested raising allocations in the education and health sectors simultaneously, minimising the number of lengthy projects.

The noted economist also advised to ensure strict monitoring for implementation of the budget, increased dependency on direct tax instead of indirect taxes like VAT, ensure allocations in different sectors on priority basis, and minimise wastage.

"There should be a fine synergy between the monetary policy and the fiscal policy ... Boosting supply chain is needed as inflation is mostly supply-driven," he added.

The former central bank governor opined that it was not possible to control inflation trend through interest rate as small businesses are often affected by this.

Salehuddin suggested for making the interest rate market-based.    —BSS