Rejaul Karim Byron

The coronavirus pandemic will drive an additional 13 million people into poverty, cut 3.7 million jobs, take budget deficit to as high as 7.5 per cent and inflict a minimum revenue loss of 2 per cent of GDP in Bangladesh as the killer bug is wreaking havoc throughout the economy, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has warned.

The cabinet yesterday decided to bring in changes in direct and indirect tax laws with the view to thwarting taxpayers from getting slapped with a penalty for their failure to comply with deadlines owing to the shutdown.

Bangladesh has decided not to avail the temporary debt service suspension facility extended by the Group of 20 major economies as the country is capable of meeting its current obligations despite the coronavirus pandemic hitting the economy hard.

The World Bank has decided to free up funds from three ongoing but slow-moving projects and relaxed conditions to allow Bangladesh to secure $250 million in budget support as part of its efforts to help the country stave off financial ruins.

The government is gunning for an 8.5 per cent GDP growth next fiscal year in the hope the economy would be springing back to a higher expansion trajectory once the coronavirus outbreak has been quelled.

The government is mulling over leveraging the state-run lenders’ vast branch network to implement a major portion of the stimulus packages.

Canadian company Niko Resources was negligent and thus liable for the blowout that took place at Chhatak gas field in Tengratila of Sunamganj in January 2005 while Niko’s Bangladeshi subsidiary was carrying out drilling operations there, a World Bank tribunal found.

Government agencies and banks have almost completed their preparations to implement 18 stimulus packages worth Tk 95,619 crore to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Keeping in mind the devastating impact of coronavirus and long, arduous road to recovery, the government has prepared a draft budget of Tk 550,000 crore for the next fiscal year, up 5 per cent from this year’s.

Where does this end? The Bangladesh economy now stands to lose a staggering $13.3 billion for the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Asian Development Bank, which is more than four times the amount of damage the Manila-based multilateral lender had predicted back in March.

The global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service yesterday gave a negative outlook for the country’s banking sector for the next 12 to 18 months as coronavirus-induced disruptions to domestic and export demand is deteriorating lenders’ credit profiles.

Revenue collection soared 8 per cent in the first nine months of the fiscal year, paced by the increased collection of advance corporate tax and higher receipts of indirect tax value-added tax (VAT).

Social safety net schemes and the farm sector are set to get prime focus in next fiscal year’s budget as the government looks to mop up the destruction of the global coronavirus pandemic, which stands to wipe off the gains Bangladesh made in poverty reduction over the past decade.

Bangladesh has sought $450 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for this fiscal year to meet the emergency health expenditure and finance the massive stimulus packages the country has unveiled in the face of coronavirus outbreak.

As the government is having to allocate additional funds for certain sectors to combat the coronavirus outbreak, it has suspended financing for all “low priority” projects in the Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP) for this fiscal year, officials said.

Remittance flow to Bangladesh may plunge by as much as 22 per cent in 2020 because of the fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic, in a major blow to the economy, said the World Bank yesterday.

At least 10 industry bodies have applied to both the finance ministry and the Bangladesh Bank to get financial support from the Tk 5,000 crore stimulus package for the export-oriented industries.

Bangladesh has sought an additional $1.25 billion from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to ballast the country’s purses in its fight against coronavirus and beyond.

Bangladesh has turned to multilateral lenders in earnest to pull the country out of the wreckage of COVID-19, which has left the country’s tremendous growth momentum of recent years coming crashing down.

The government will provide two months’ basic salary as incentive for doctors and other health workers who are on the front line in the war against Covid-19 pandemic.