Rejaul Karim Byron

Manufacturing activity in Bangladesh dropped as much as 28.78 per cent in April from a month earlier, official figures showed, in a first glimpse of the major blow the coronavirus pandemic dished out to the economy.

Youth unemployment in Bangladesh may more than double in 2020 if the country takes six months to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused economic output and demand to fall drastically, said a new report.

The government has directed ministries and divisions to pick high-priority projects from the list of the unapproved schemes in the annual development programme as development work has been hamstrung by revenue shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The government has distributed cash support among 35 lakh beneficiaries rendered poor because of the coronavirus pandemic after preparing a database through multi-layer scrutiny of the people who needed it most.

The financial regulators and the government organisations are still struggling to resolve the much-talked five financial scams in the country as the embezzled fund worth Tk 18,253 crore are yet to be recovered.

The planning ministry yesterday expressed disappointment over frequent amendments in projects, one after another missed deadlines, and the directors’ absence at project sites.

Bangladesh’s investment to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio rose in the just-concluded fiscal year, data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday, in what can be viewed as an inexplicable development as most indicators were pointing towards a contrary scenario.

In the end, the final data from state-run Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows the economy grew at a respectable 5.2 per cent last fiscal year, when large swathes of the global economy plunged into recession for the outbreak of coronavirus from Wuhan, China.

The government yesterday included a rail route in the Bangladesh-Nepal’s existing transit agreement to give a much-needed boost to bilateral trade by cutting distance.

The government has decided to prepare a roadmap to ensure full implementation of the annual development programme this fiscal year after development expenditure fell to a 27-year low in fiscal 2019-20.

A silver lining seems to have appeared in front of Navana Group at last.

Bangladesh yesterday got the first tranche of the $1 billion loan pledged by Japan to bounce back from economic whiplash brought on by the global coronavirus pandemic.

Amnesty to black money has always been a nonstarter, so Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s move to tuck in the facility with added benefits in this fiscal year’s budget has left many scratching their heads.

Banks came under milder than usual strong fund withdrawal pressure ahead of Eid-ul-Azha this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, countrywide floods and job and income losses.

The government is set to make an all-out effort from next month to generate an increased amount of revenue from the legalisation of untaxed money as it needs the sum to kickstart the coronavirus-ravaged economy.

Irregularities and apathy have become a permanent feature of project implementation in Bangladesh, thanks to which no infrastructure is ever ready on time.

Dhaka has decided to charge Tk 2 per tonne per kilometre in road usage fees for Indian goods that would be transshipped using Bangladesh’s territory, officials said.

The government is aiming to lift private investment to GDP ratio to a record 25.3 per cent this fiscal year although the coronavirus-induced uncertainty showed no signs of abating and structural challenges are largely unaddressed.

Nearly 6.53 crore poor people in Bangladesh should receive time-bound temporary cash payments to cope with the worst impacts of Covid-19 pandemic, according to the United Nations.

Bangladesh’s budget deficit may shoot to as high as 10 per cent of the GDP in the current fiscal year as the government would have to keep spending more to tackle the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic amid a drastic fall in revenue generation, the World Bank said.