Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Thursday announced a Tk 2,22,491 crore budget for 2013-14 fiscal year easing the scope for investing undisclosed money and offering incentives to various groups. The 80-year old bureaucrat-turned-politician announced a deficit of Tk 55,032 crore in what seems to be a ‘please all’ the budget in the election year. In his budget speech […]

Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Thursday proposed downsizing the bureaucracy and decentralization of the service system at the local level. Presenting the fifth and last annual budget of the Awami Leage-led government, he admitted that despite the ruling party’s pre-election pledge the government was unable to free bureaucracy from political influence. ‘We could not free the bureaucracy from political influence/interference […]

Trade bodies and business leaders expressed mixed reaction to the budget proposal for the 2014 financial year the finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, placed in the parliament on Thursday. The business leaders said that although the proposal had a number of good elements for trade and investments but the financing and the budget implementation would remain big challenges. The […]

Angry locals set fire to a police camp, blocked Dhaka-Aricha highway and vandalised 20 vehicles as the death of a businessman allegedly in police custody triggered violent protests at Hemayetpur in Savar on the outskirts of the capital on Thursday. A sub-inspector of Savar police station was suspended on Thursday for his alleged involvement in the custodial death of the […]

The government on Thursday proposed to raise the defence allocation to Tk 14,556.51 crore for 2013-14 from Tk 12,887 crore in the previous fiscal. Presenting the coming fiscal’s budget in Parliament, finance minister AMA Muhith proposed to set aside 6.5 per cent of the total budget outlay of Tk 2,22,491 crore for defence. ‘We are committed to build a strong […]

The finance minister, AMA Muhith, has proposed to allocate a whopping Tk 12,334 crore in the budget for next fiscal year for capital investment, mainly to bail out the scam-plagued state-owned commercial banks. Muhith in the budget also proposed to allocate Tk 3,000 crore for the public-private partnership initiative which could not take off in four years. In total, for […]

The finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, has proposed an allocation of Tk 26,093 crore for the education and information technology sectors for 2013-14 fiscal year but did not allocate a single penny for implementation of the education policy in the consecutive third budget. In the proposed budget, education ministry will receive Tk 13,179 crore and the primary and mass […]

Finance minister AMA Muhith on Thursday proposed allocation of Tk 9,495 crore for the health sector in the national budget for the 2013-14 of which Tk 3,602 crore was earmarked for the development of the sector which was Tk 3,825 crore in the outgoing fiscal year. In the outgoing fiscal year, the allocation was 5,508 crore for non-development sector but […]

Prices of brand new cars will mark a sharp increase but prices of reconditioned cars and windshields will go down as the finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, in his budget speech on Thursday proposed an increase in the supplementary duty on new cars with the capacity having the 1500cc–4000cc range. Muhith proposed an increase in the supplementary duty to […]

The finance minister, AMA Muhith, on Thursday set a target to bring down inflation to 7 per cent in the next fiscal year banking on stability on international oil and food markets amid rising trend of inflation in last two months. Claiming success, Muhith, in his budget speech, said that the government could bring down inflation to ‘tolerable level’, restoring […]

The finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, on Thursday proposed a tax increase on the import of newsprint paper for publication and the newspaper industry to 61.09 per cent from 23.45 per cent. Muhith in the budget proposal he placed in the parliament for the 2014 financial year said that commercial importers of newsprint paper had paid import tax at […]

Economists and experts on Thursday termed the proposed budget for fiscal year 2013-2014 ‘highly ambitious’ saying that the government had placed the budget to fulfill the instant needs keeping in mind the next general elections. They said chances of corruption and misuse of funds might be created when the government would try to implement the large annual development programme in […]

The government in its budget proposal for the 2014 financial year recommended setting aside Tk 22,450 crore in subsidy in the energy, power and agriculture sectors, 30.7 per cent less than the figure of subsidy on the sectors in the outgoing financial year. The finance minister, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, who placed the budget proposal in the parliament on Thursday, […]

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led opposition has termed the proposed budget for 2013-14 fiscal ‘directionless’ and aimed at serving the ruling party’s political purposes in the election year. The opposition said allocation for Padma Bridge would cause a long-term chaos in the national economy. BNP lawmakers at a news briefing at the parliament media centre on Thursday made the remarks in […]

Reshma Begum, the teenage seamstress who survived 17 days being trapped under the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza, has found a new job at a five-star hotel. She joined work at the Westin Dhaka after walking smilingly out of the combined military hospital in Savar on Thursday. The Westin Dhaka in a press release said that she had been […]