Budget speech in english – Budget Summary has been place in parliament of Bangladesh by Finance Minister– Budget Speech 2023-24

The main focus of our fiscal policy and strategy will be to mobilise internal resources, increase efficiency in expenditure management and find out cost-effective financing sources from home and abroad to meet the challenges of the post LDC graduation period. We want to harness all potentials of generating revenues. Tax revenue will be significantly increased through expansion of tax net by simplifying the return submission process and other reforms, rationalisation of tax exemptions, establishment and expansion of electronic fiscal device (EFD) to support value added tax collection in an automated and transparent manner, online VAT registration, automation of tax administration, etc. At present, the process of strengthening the manpower structure of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is underway.

A study is being carried out to help rationalise the scope, extent and nature of tax exemptions. The NBR is preparing a ‘Medium Term Revenue Collection Strategy (MTRS)’ to help achieve the revenue collection targets in the medium term. Income tax and customs laws are being modernised.

In tandem with the process of augmenting tax revenues, we are trying to augment non-tax revenues as well. We are updating fees/rates, identifying potential sources and making the Ministries/Divisions aware of and active in collecting revenues from these sources. Ministry/Division wise databases of fees/rates of services rendered by the government have already been created.

Monetary and Financial Sector Reforms । Timely adjustments in monetary policy are being made to maintain macroeconomic balances and achieve higher growth

In order to ensure necessary liquidity in the money market during the COVID-19 crisis, the repo rate was reduced by 100 basis points to 4.75 percent from 5.75 percent in two steps and the reverse repo rate was reduced by 75 basis points to 4.00 percent from 4.75 percent. Later, repo rate has been increased by 125 basis points from 4.75 percent to present 6.00 percent and reverse repo rate has been revised by 25 basis points to 4.25 percent.

Budget Speech 2023-24 Full PDF Download

Budget Speech । Balance of Payment, Foreign Exchange Reserves, and Foreign Exchange Rates

1. It is a matter of relief that our budget deficit is more or less close to 5 percent of GDP in spite of various setbacks at the global and national levels; and
2. the budget deficit will remain limited to 5.0 percent according to the fiscal policy adopted for the medium term. Government’s total debt remains well below the internationally set thresholds for sustainable debt.
3. While meeting the shortfall of domestic resources in financing development activities, we will aim to ensure sustainable debt management in the medium term.
4. Hence, during the pre-transition and post- transition periods, we will continue to look for bilateral and multilateral foreign financing sources for credit facilities on possible easier terms.
5. While achieving high growth is our goal, we want to lay greater emphasis on maintaining macroeconomic stability at the same time.
6. Already following the adoption of time-befitting strategy of our government, the instability in the balance of payment has lessened.
7. We will remain cautious and adopt an accommodative policy in the coming financial year as well.
8. The gap between the existing multiple exchange rates is being brought to a minimum level with the aim of making the exchange rate gradually market-oriented.

What is sustanble debt management?

 In the current financial year, the austerity strategy has helped reduce expenditure in some sectors, but subsidy and interest expenditure have gone up. Increased subsidy and interest expenditure and a part of accumulated subsidy arrears are being met from the fiscal buffer created through austerity measures. Already, the price of electricity, gas and fuel has been increased to reduce the subsidy expenditure. Besides, a road map is being formulated to establish a permanent system of formula-based price adjustment in the energy sector. We hope to finalise the formula- based price adjustment system by September this year. The total subsidy will gradually decrease in the medium term following the recent price increases and the implementation of the upcoming adjustment mechanism. However, due to accumulated arrears, the burden of subsidy expenditure will take some time to fully subside. Therefore, we need to increase the amount of power and agriculture subsidies in the next financial year as well.