Next budget to be Tk 4,68,000 crore

Special Correspondent: Finance Minister AMA has said the outlay of the budget for the coming 2018-2019 financial year (FY19) could be Taka 4,68,000 crore.

"We announced Taka 4,00,266 crore budget for current fiscal. Revised budget for the current fiscal will be Taka 3,71,000 crore. We have projected Taka 4,68,000 crore for the next fiscal," he told journalists after coordination council meeting and Budget Monitoring and Resource Committee (BMRC) meeting at the Finance Ministry in the city on Sunday.

Mentioning the figure as the initial indicator, he said, the actual figure of the next budget will be fixed on February, 2018.

"FY19 budget will be the last budget for this tenure of the present government. So I thought that we should start well tune on that budget right now," he added. 

"There will no new initiative in the next budget. It will not be either an ambitious budget," he added.

Muhith said education will be the most priority sector in the next budget as the government will give more emphasis on manpower development. 

This fiscal, the finance minister said, the implementation performance of Annual Development Programme (ADP) is very good, so that the budget implementation performance is slightly better than the previous fiscal.

Responding to a question, he said, the revenue collection performance is also better than previous fiscal.

"So far the revenue collection is ok. Last fiscal, the growth of revenue collection was 11 percent. This fiscal, we expected the growth will be 13 percent," he added. 

He said the number of taxpayers has enormously increased due to the government's time befitting initiatives to expedite the revenue collection. 

"We set a target to increase the number of taxpayers to 25 lakh. But the number has increased to 32 lakh," he added. 

Referring to Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, he said, despite the losses of crops, the DGP growth will exceed 7.4 percent this fiscal.

risingbd/Dhaka/November 26, 2017/KMA Hasnat/A K Azad