Bangladesh passes 62-bln-USD budget for next fiscal year

DHAKA, June 30 . The Bangladeshi parliament on Sunday passed a record 5-trillion-Taka (about 62-billion-U.S. dollar) national budget for the next 2019-20 fiscal year (July 2019-June 2020).

Targeting an economic growth of 8.2 percent, Bangladeshi Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed before the parliament the 11th annual budget of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling Bangladesh Awami League (AL) party government in a row since 2009.

Unanimously by voice vote, the parliament passed the budget on the last working day of the current 2018-19 financial year with some adjustments.

In the next 2019-20 fiscal year, the total budget will be 5,231.90 billion taka, which accounts for 18.1 percent of GDP, increasing 13 percent from the budget of the outgoing 2018-19 fiscal year.

On the expenditure side, the size of Annual Development Program (ADP) for the next fiscal year will be 2.02 trillion taka with human resource, power and energy and communication sectors getting the biggest chunk of money.

Regional parity, human resource development, infrastructural development and quality of expenditure have been given priority in the allocation for the annual development program, the minister said in his budget speech and expressed the hope to keep the average annual inflation rate at 5.5 percent in the next fiscal year. Xinhua