Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith said the proposed national budget for the next fiscal year (FY 18-19) is implementable. He made the remarks while answering questions from reporters at a post-budget press conference held at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in Dhaka on Friday (Jun 8), local media reports said.
“Whatever targets have been set in the proposed budget would be achievable. This budget will be implementable,” he said replying to a question.
The minister placed a Tk 4,64,573 crore budget at the parliament on Thursday (Jun 7) forecasting 7.8 percent GDP growth and 5.6 percent inflation rate.
Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Planning Minister A H M Mustafa Kamal, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, Prime Minister's Economic Affairs Adviser Dr Moshiur Rahman, PM’s Energy Adviser Dr Taqfiq E Elahi Chowdhury, Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir, NBR Chairman Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan and others were also present at the press conference.
When asked about the slashing of the corporate tax rate by 2.5 percent, Muhith said that 40 percent corporate tax rate is very rare in the world adding that this time the corporate tax rate has been reduced in a very planned way as this was done not all on a sudden, even the matter was discussed with the PM.
When asked whether this budget is an election budget, the minister termed his each and every budget as ‘election budget’ saying that being an important member of the ruling party, he has to deliver such budget which is being liked by the countrymen.
The minister also claimed that he has been able to keep up the promise of not imposing any new tax in the proposed budget.
