The country’s macro-economic indicators; including export earning, remittance and foreign exchange reserve; were satisfactory in the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal (2018-19).
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal made the statement on Sunday in the parliament while placing the report on budget implementation progress of the first quarter (Q1), the trend of income and expenditure, and macroeconomic analysis, reports BSS.
Highlighting some key macroeconomic indicators during the first quarter of the current fiscal, the Finance Minister said the revenue collection under the National Board Revenue (NBR) rose by 12.9 per cent, while the overall public expenditure increased by 10.38 per cent, the ADP implementation rate was 7.88 per cent during first quarter of current fiscal which was 10.2 per cent in the last fiscal.
He said the export earnings rose to US$ 9.98 billion in first quarter of current fiscal, which was US$ 8.1 billion during the same period of the previous year. The export earning rate increased by 14.48 per cent during the first quarter of current fiscal, while it was 7.61 per cent in previous year, he added.
Kamal said the import expenditure increased by 11.48 per cent to US$ 14.69 billion, while it was 28.39 per cent in last fiscal.
He said the growth for opening import LCs is 0.35 per cent, the private sector credit flow increased by 14.67 per cent. “The rate of remittance increased by 13.73 per cent during the first quarter of this fiscal while it was 4.48 per cent during the same period of last fiscal,” he added.
Noting that the foreign exchange reserve is almost stable, the Finance Minister said it was US$ 31.96 billion on September 30 in 2018.
He said the overall inflation increased to 5.68 per cent in September 2018 from 5.55 per cent in September 2017, while the rate of general point-to-point inflation came down to 5.43 per cent in September 2018 from 6.12 per cent in September 2017.