Cabinet approves budget proposal for FY2023-24

The cabinet has approved the proposed budget for the 2023-24 fiscal. Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will place the budget in parliament within a short time.

The cabinet approved the proposed budget for the new fiscal year during a meeting presided over by prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban on Thursday.

A member of the cabinet, who was present at the meeting, confirmed this to Prothom Alo.

The size of the budget this time is Tk 7.6 trillion.

The budget speech this year is titled "Unnayner Agrayatra Periye Smart Bangladesher Abhimukhe" (Towards a Smart Bangladesh after the march of development). He will highlight developing smart citizens, smart economy, smart government and smart society.

The target of income in the budget would be Tk 5 trillion (500,000 crore). Of the amount, the target of income of National Board of Revenue (NBR) will be Tk 4.3 trillion.

The deficit in the budget will be more than Tk 2.5 trillion. The GDP growth target in the upcoming budget would be 7.5 per cent while the inflation rate would be 6.5 per cent.

The most talked about issue in the budget is meeting the conditions of International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF granted a loan of US $4.7 billion at the beginning of this year.

But the IMF has put forwarded 38 conditions that have to be met in the next three and a half years. Nearly half of the conditions have to be implemented by the next fiscal year (2023-24).

Some of the conditions including introducing corridor system for interest rate, adopting proper method to calculate foreign reserve, adopting single exchange rate, and some other are involved with the Bangladesh Bank.

Announcement of fulfilling some of the conditions will be made during announcing the monetary policy later in this June while some other would be announced in July. The significant conditions of IMF include increasing the tax revenue and balance of foreign reserve.