Rejaul Karim Byron

The government has officially abandoned its decade-long plan to build an expressway on the Dhaka-Chattogram corridor, a crucial cog for the Bangladesh economy, under public-private partnership -- after shelling out Tk 100 crore on a feasibility study and getting a detailed design.

The government will pay $569 million as the first annual instalment against the loan taken from Russia for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear power plant, the largest infrastructure development project in Bangladesh.

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is expected to become operational from 2023, months ahead of the scheduled 2024 timeframe, said Shaukat Akbar, its project director.

Although fast-track projects had previously witnessed slow implementation for various reasons including the pandemic, they are now progressing gradually, according to a report.

Bangladesh is forecast to remain ahead of India in terms of per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in the next five years to 2026 powered by buoyancy in remittance, exports and agricultural activities.

Bangladesh is taking on increasingly higher levels of debt to fund its infrastructure spending, crucial for the economy to level up to a middle-income one by 2041.

The World Bank in a report noted a gradual recovery in employment and earnings in Bangladesh, forecasting that the country’s poverty rate will come down to pre-pandemic levels in the current fiscal year.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed the authorities concerned to take punitive action against those responsible for unusual delays and irregularities in a project for building a medical college hospital in Kushtia.

The government will spend an estimated Tk 17,000 crore this fiscal year to procure Covid-19 vaccines as it has secured access to around 24 crore doses from multiple sources.

The finance ministry is initiating a training programme on procurement and financial management procedures for officials of the Health Service Division (HSD) in a bid to improve their efficiency.

The sixth population census of the country is set to see further delays as the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has failed to conduct it as per schedule, although three years have passed since drawing up a master plan.

Overall inflation rose 18 basis points to 5.54 per cent in August owing to the rise in demand and the abnormal hike in transport cost following the reopening of the economy from the coronavirus-induced lockdowns, official figures showed.

Bangladesh will have to pay $188.4 million to the New Development Bank (NDB) as paid-up capital for being a member of the new international lender.

Default loans recovery in Bangladesh fell to at least a five-year low of Tk 6,922 crore in the last fiscal year as borrowers struggled to pay back amid the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The government has cut the interest rate on savings certificates and wage-earner bonds by 1 to 3 percentage points – a move that may help the authorities save but hurt the middle-income group dependent on the returns to make a living.

Write-off loans rose slightly in the second quarter of 2021, although they remain at the lower level thanks to the eases of rules because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The profits of state-owned enterprises plummeted in the last fiscal year as their incomes took a beating from the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is going to publish the gross domestic product (GDP) growth data every quarter from the next fiscal year.

Although  the overall implementation of the annual development programme (ADP)  marked a rise in the first two months of the new fiscal year compared to  the corresponding period a year before, the ADP  implementation in the health service sector is still lagging.

The government, following a study, has primarily estimated that it will need at least $90 million to implement a recovery plan for an education sector hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.