Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal launched a vitriolic attack on stock market investors who tend to gain quickly rather than making long-term investment.
"Our investors want to make profit only. They want to get out by doing (quick) trade and earning small profits," he told reporters on Thursday at his secretariat office.
"One is you do (short-term) trade and make profit. The other one is you invest for long time to make capital gain. Unfortunately, none here thinks about capital gain," the minister said, referring to two ways of doing trade in the stock market.
Mr Kamal said none of the country's stock investors thinks that the price of his Tk 100 share will rise to Tk 150.
"In every stock market, share prices go up and down for various reasons. But there is no instance of losses on the part of people who made long-term investment," he added.
The minister also said the index of the Indian stock market plunged to 7,000 from 18,000, and again climbed to 23,000.
This fluctuation happened there, he said, adding the same thing happened in Bangladesh, too.
"There is no massive ups and down in Bangladesh's stock market. It is stable now," he said.
Noting that Bangladesh's economy is strong, Mr Kamal said this strength is recognised globally.
But he questioned why the impact of a strong economy on the stock market is not visible.
The impact should be visible there, he added.
He also said in Bangladesh's capital market, small investors outnumber large investors.
The minister said he has done his best to help the country's stock market and will continue support the market so that it can stand on a strong footing.
He said tens of thousands of small investors are still involved in the stock market.
"We can't think about country's economy without them. We will continue our effort to support them," he said.
Replying to a query regarding siphoning off money in the name of terracotta export by a businessman, the minister said stern action will be taken against the people involved with it.
In response to another query, he said the ministry will sit with stakeholders soon to discuss the budget implementation.
"In the past, we only sat with stakeholders before budget preparation. But from now on we will also sit with them to discuss how the budget can be implemented successfully," the minister said.
Mr Kamal said the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has praised Bangladesh for the country's achievements.
He said so far, the bank has provided US$500 million in loans and made a commitment of $1.0 billion this year.
syful-islam@outlook.com