Rejaul Karim Byron

Bangladesh’s GDP grew by 3.97 percent this fiscal year, the slowest in 34 years excluding the pandemic, on the back of lower growth in the agriculture and service sectors.

As much as Tk 122,000 crore is expected to be allocated for interest payment in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which is about 22 percent of the total revenue budget.

The interim government expects the country’s gross foreign exchange reserves to rise to $34.4 billion by the end of the fiscal year (FY) 2025–26, buoyed by strong remittance inflows, export performance, and budgetary support from development partners.

The budget for fiscal 2025-26 is likely to be smaller than the current year’s outlay, but subsidy spending is expected to remain almost unchanged at Tk 1,15,741 crore.

The interim government is likely to introduce a transparent system for social safety net schemes in the upcoming budget, increasing the number of beneficiaries by around 10 lakh while slashing one-third of the existing programmes.

The government plans to raise the food subsidy allocation by 31 percent to Tk 9,500 crore in the upcoming fiscal year, aiming to ensure access to affordable food for poor and low-income households.

The interim government plans to reduce the national budget deficit to 3.6 percent of gross domestic product in the upcoming fiscal year -- the lowest in 14 years -- as it seeks to rebuild fiscal credibility, limit borrowing, and ease pressure from rising debt servicing costs.

Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed speaks to The Daily Star

For the first time, the planning ministry has used a digital budget planning system to categorise spending based on economic codes

The railway ministry, the power division, and the primary and mass education ministry will see the biggest chop.

Interest payments and subsidies have absorbed nearly half of Bangladesh’s total budget expenditure in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, underscoring growing fiscal stress and raising concerns over public finances.

The government has reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund for the fourth and fifth tranche of the $4.7 billion loan programme, putting to bed months of uncertainty over their disbursement.

The government is planning to significantly reduce its bank borrowing target in the upcoming fiscal year as it aims to narrow the budget deficit by scaling down the overall budget size.

The government is set to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund over the exchange rate issue that has been holding up the release of the fourth and fifth tranches of the $4.7 billion loan programme soon.

Bangladesh’s interim government is preparing to unveil a rare contractionary budget on June 2, driven by a sharp rise in interest payment that is crowding out fiscal space and forcing spending cuts.

Bangladesh’s approach to budgeting for health and education has come under sharp scrutiny, as decades of allocations have primarily gone towards construction. Meanwhile, the core of these sectors, service delivery, has been historically neglected.

Bangladesh’s upcoming national budget, set to be unveiled by the interim government in June, could mark a rare departure from past fiscal cycles.

In a country weighed down by high inflation, dwindling fiscal space and weak investments, now is not the time for illusions.

As part of policy reforms aimed at improving the credibility and accuracy of national statistics, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has been empowered to publish official data without prior government approval.

The interim government is set to slash the development budget for the fiscal year (FY) 2025-26 by 14 percent year-on-year, as it struggles with limited fiscal space and steers away from costly mega-projects.