Over Tk 7.61 lakh crore budget will be placed on Thursday

Staff Reporter :
The budget session of Jatiya Sangsad for the 2023-24 fiscal year will begin at 5:00pm today (Wednesday). It will be 23rd budget session of the ongoing 11th Sangsad.
The national budPget for 2023-24 fiscal year will be placed at the Jatiya Sangsad session on Thursday and it is expected that Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will place the national budget of over Tk 7.61 lakh crore for the next FY23-24 on Thursday (June 1) with a major focus on containing inflation, generating jobs, efforts towards building a ‘Smart Bangladesh’ and addressing the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR).

Meanwhile, President Md Shahabuddin convened the 23rd session of Jatiya Sangsad on May 14 last.
According Finance Ministry sources, the budget would not be ambitious one, nor expansionary.
The Finance Minister is set to deliver his budget speech with a possible title “Unnayner Derdoshok: Smart Bangladesher Abhimukhe.”
Before starting the session, a meeting of the parliamentary advisory committee will be at 4:00pm on Wednesday. The meeting will decide the timing of placing the national budget, allocation of time on supplementary and main budgets, and timing of passing of the budget.

On the first day, the Jatiya Sangsad session will be adjourned following discussions on a condolence motion.
According to Finance Ministry sources, the Tk 7,61,785 crore proposed budget would mainly aim at taming inflation alongside the higher GDP growth trajectory, said a Finance Ministry official.

The government this time is eyeing to attain a growth rate of 7.5 per cent in the next fiscal year (FY24) along with containing the inflation rate around 6.5 per cent. The total investment target in the next year will be 33.8 per cent of the GDP.
The provisional estimate of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) shows that the GDP has grown by 6.03 per cent in the outgoing fiscal year (FY23) and the inflation rate was 8.4 per cent till April.

The budget speech has been prepared with emphasis on ensuring people’s employment through business expansion. The government will take initiatives to increase the investment of state-owned enterprises to create new jobs.
Special focus will be given on the ICT sector, power sector, and making smart citizens.
The next budget will be 12.34 per cent bigger than the current one. It will be 15.21 per cent of the projected GDP of Tk 50,06,682 crore, compared to 15.27 per cent in the current fiscal year. This shows that the next budget is not ambitious.
According to sources, the government targets a possible revenue collection of Tk 5 lakh crore, around Tk 67,000 crore more than that in FY23.
Out of the overall revenue collection target, the NBR is likely to be tasked with a revenue collection target of Tk 4.30 lakh crore while Tk 20,000 crore is likely to come from the non-NBR sources. Besides, the budget also eyes to collect Tk 50,000 crore as non-tax revenue.
The government has already approved a Tk 2.63 lakh crore Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the next fiscal year (FY24) of which Tk 1.69 lakh crore (64.26%) will come from the local sources while the rest of Tk 94,000 crore (35.74%) will come from the foreign sources. Considering the allocations against the autonomous bodies and corporations, the overall estimated development expenditure in the next fiscal year would stand at Tk 2,77,582 crore.

Out of the major expenditure, Tk 4,84,203 crore will likely to be kept as operating cost of which Tk 94,378 crore will be spent for interest payment, Tk 80,000 crore for bearing the salaries and expenses of the public servants, Tk 1.10 lakh crore for subsidies, and Tk 1,26,272 crore for the social safety nets.
Sources with the Finance Ministry said an amount of Tk 1,27,019 crore would be available as net foreign loan alongside Tk 3,000 crore as grants. The target for realising net foreign loan in the outgoing fiscal year was Tk 95,458 crore.

The government will also likely to borrow Tk 1,32,395 crore from the banking sector in the next budget to meet the deficit financing of which most of the amount will be short-term loan. The target for borrowing from the banking system in the current fiscal year was Tk 1,06,334 crore.
The overall size of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the next fiscal year is likely to be set at Tk 50,06,672 crore which was Tk 44,49,959 crore in the outgoing fiscal year.
The overall deficit in the next budget is likely to be Tk 2,61,785 crore, which is 5.2 per cent of the GDP.
To meet the deficit, the government plans to borrow Tk 1,50,785 crore from domestic sources, including Tk 1,32,395 crore from the banking system, and Tk 1,10,785 crore from foreign sources.
People, who have tax identification numbers (TINs) and are below the taxable income ceiling, must submit their returns and pay a minimum tax of Tk 2,000.
The taxable income ceiling is likely to be raised to Tk 3.50 lakh from the current Tk 3 lakh. The minimum tax on taxable income will remain the same at Tk 5,000.
The official said people with no taxable income will have the option to cancel their TINs.
There are around 88 lakh TIN-holders, but only around 30 lakh submit their returns.