Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has unveiled the upcoming 2022-23 fiscal year's proposed national budget with a record outlay of Tk 6.78 trillion in the national parliament.
He presented the budget – up by over 14.30 per cent from the revised budget size of the outgoing fiscal year – at 3:00pm on Thursday.
The finance minister set the GDP (gross domestic product) growth rate at 7.5 per cent, and the inflation rate at 5.5 per cent.
As the total size of the expenditure budget has been estimated at Tk 6.78 trillion (or Tk 6780.64 billion), the outlay is 15.2 per cent of the GDP.
For the operating and other expenditures an allocation of Tk. 4.32 trillion is there while for the annual development programme, allocation stands at Tk 2.46 trillion.
The total revenue earnings for the next year has been estimated at Tk. 4.33 trillion, of which the NBR will collect Tk 3.70 trillion and another Tk 630.0 billion will be collected from other sources.
The overall budget deficit for the proposed budget will be Tk 2.45 trillion which is 5.5 per cent of GDP which was 6.2 per cent of GDP in FY22 original budget.
This budget happens to be Bangladesh’s 51st since the independence and the 14th in a row by the Awami League government.
It is the fourth consecutive budget placed by the incumbent finance minister. He will speak at a post-budget press conference in person tomorrow (Friday) at 3:00pm at Osmani Auditorium in Dhaka city.
In the FY23 budget, Kamal allocates Tk 1.83 trillion for the social infrastructure which is 27.05 per cent of the total budgetary allocation.
Out of this, allocation for the human resources sector (education, health and other related sectors) is Tk 1.67 trillion.
He also allocates Tk 2.0 trillion for physical infrastructure sector which is 29.62 per cent of the total budget.
Out of this Tk 867.98 billion will go to overall agriculture and rural development sub-sector, followed by Tk 790.26 billion for communication infrastructure sub-sector and Tk 260.65 billion for power and energy sub-sector.
An allocation of Tk 1.53 trillion has also been proposed for general services sector which is 22.59 per cent of the national budget in FY23.
The finance minister has also proposed Tk 531.55 billion for public-private partnership (PPP), financial assistance to different industries, subsidies, equity investments in state-owned, commercial and financial institutions. The amount is around 7.90 per cent of the total outlay.
The government also plans to spend Tk 803.75 billion for paying interest which is 11.85 per cent of the total budget allocation.
For net lending and other expenses, Tk 70.41 billion has been proposed which is 1.04 per cent of the total allocation.