Rejaul Karim Byron

Ministries instructed to review projects with less than 30% progress and scrap those no longer viable

Bangladesh has secured about $3.11 billion in emergency budget support from four development partners, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, this month to cushion the economic fallout from the US and Israel’s war on Iran.

Proposes draft law after banking woes identified as obstacle to $1tn economy ambition

The World Bank has warned that Bangladesh’s distressed banking sector remains the biggest obstacle to the government’s ambition of becoming a trillion-dollar economy by 2034.

The government’s external debt servicing burden is projected to almost double to $7.6 billion in FY29 from $4.11 billion in FY25 as rising interest payments, shorter loan maturities, and repayments for several mega projects begin to weigh on public finances.

Dhaka is expected to seek Beijing’s financing for three major projects during Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s upcoming visit to China

The World Bank’s board is set to approve $1.5 billion in budget support under three loan programmes for Bangladesh this month, a development that will bring much relief to the strained government finances amid the Middle East war.

Bangladeshis’ deposits in Swiss banks rose over 41 percent in 2025 to 834.16 million Swiss francs, which is about Tk 12,751 crore, the highest level in four years.

Bangladesh will need to make substantial progress on domestic reforms aimed at addressing its deep-rooted structural weaknesses if it is to get a three-year extension to the timeline of its graduation from the least-developed country category, said the UN Committee for Development Policy.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) yesterday approved a Tk 4,189 crore project to build supporting infrastructure for the Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone (CEIZ) in Chattogram’s Anwara.

The gas subsidy has more than trebled this fiscal year, along with subsidies for electricity and fertiliser, due to costly purchases from the international spot market as a result of the Iran war.

As much as 43.2 percent of the allocation under the social safety net overhead for the next fiscal year will go towards government employees’ pensions and agricultural subsidies.

The proposed budget for FY2026-27 has earmarked Tk 44,000 crore for partial implementation of the new pay structure for government employees, although the government has yet to specify how it will be rolled out.

Tk 55,000cr additional allocation under public service head

The government is set to place education and health at the centre of its spending plan for the next fiscal year, with the combined allocation for the two sectors likely to rise by nearly 63 percent from this fiscal year’s revised budget.

The Asian Development Bank has shortlisted nine projects to fund in 2027 and 10 in 2028 involving a total of $3.8 billion as part of its proposed Integrated Growth Network Development (IGND) initiative.

Govt targets $13.27 billion foreign assistance in next fiscal year

Outlay to focus on economic recovery, jobs and electoral pledges amid high inflation

Finance minister inherited a ruptured economy. Now comes the harder part -- fixing it

About one-fourth of the upcoming fiscal year’s budget will go towards five ministries and divisions including health, education and defence, with a significant portion kept as block allocations to undertake projects in line with the BNP’s electoral pledges.