Rejaul Karim Byron

People are increasingly returning to jobs they had lost to the coronavirus pandemic despite the persisting health risks and the wage growth failing to keep pace with the rebounding economy.

The government has decided to use the country’s ballooning foreign exchange reserves to implement development projects.

One in every 10 people in the capital may have already been infected with Covid-19, says the World Bank, warning that the coronavirus pandemic is not likely to pass anytime soon.

Bangladesh’s economy may make a U-shaped recovery if the government spends proactively and can tap into international resources even though output is set to fall drastically in the next two fiscal years because of the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, World Bank said yesterday.

Inflation rose for the second consecutive month in September driven by an increase in the price of both food and non-food items, official figures showed yesterday.

Students, rickshaw-pullers and labourers faced the worst financial hardship during pandemic whereas government employees and teachers were least impacted by it, reported Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).

Bangladesh may seek more than $2.5 billion from World Bank in budgetary support, project financing and aid as it has to implement a major portion of the country’s gigantic stimulus package to revive the economy.

The government has undertaken a programme worth $550 million with an aim to procure and distribute coronavirus vaccines.

The government has undertaken a programme worth $550 million with an aim to procure and distribute coronavirus vaccines.

The government is aiming to clock more than 8 per cent economic growth on average during the Eight Five-Year Plan period as it hopes that the impacts of the devastating coronavirus pandemic would fade in the second half of the current fiscal year.

A South Korean joint venture is likely to be engaged in turning the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway into an expressway under a public private partnership (PPP) initiative.

Implementation of government’s stimulus package, announced to absorb the economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic, saw a mixed progress as around 26 percent of the massive Tk 111,141-crore scheme was disbursed in four months till July.

Around 68 percent of the people who had to stop working in urban areas of Dhaka and Chattogram due to the pandemic have lost their jobs, according to a World Bank report.

Despite some loopholes, the implementation of an electronic system for public procurement, replacing paper-based lengthy process, has been a boon for Bangladesh as it is saving millions of dollars and reducing time in the bidding process, the World Bank said.

Bidders need to give bribes in the form of financial benefits, arrange trips and host dinners for government officials to win public procurement contracts, says a World Bank report.

The planning ministry has expressed dissatisfaction over a decision to put on hold implementation of low-priority projects.

With development projects losing steam for the ongoing pandemic and several months of shutdown, the Economic Relations Division (ERD) hopes to get four back on track by getting loan agreements signed with China this fiscal year.

The government has not discarded its plan to offload shares of several state-run banks, said Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

Banks managed to post 8.95 per cent credit growth in the last fiscal year despite a steep fall in business in the last quarter owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

Development expenditure dropped 10.18 per cent year-on-year to Tk 5,097.79 crore in August as activities are yet to pick up because of the lingering coronavirus pandemic.