Bangladesh is facing a different type of complex political-economic situation. The Executive Director of Policy Research Institute (PRI) thinks that this has not happened before. Ahsan H. Mansoor. He said that earlier the political situation centered on the election was dealt with, but now we have to deal with the political and economic situation. This situation has arisen due to the involvement of a different country with the election-centric political situation and the global political situation. He said these things in the main presentation at the press conference titled ‘IMF and Bangladesh’ at the PRI office in Banani of the capital on Tuesday. It was conducted by the Research Director of PRI. Abdur Razzaq.
Ahsan H. Mansoor said that Bangladesh is certain to receive the second installment of the IMF. Soon it will be known that Bangladesh is getting 681 million dollars from the IMF. Unless a major power wants to do otherwise. He said, different countries are connected with the political uncertainty of Bangladesh this time. It added a different dimension. Still, no one seems to stand in the way of IMF debt relief. There are also examples. In the past, the reversal came a day before the final announcement of an IMF loan to the African nation of Sudan.
Ahsan H. Mansoor said, inflation is creating risk in the economy. Bangladesh is lagging behind in meeting the inflation target. Even if the global inflation has decreased, it has not decreased in Bangladesh. This is because imports are restricted to a handful of importing firms. As a result, even if the target is set to control the inflation, the target cannot be achieved. If the dollar exchange rate is suddenly left to the market, it will spiral out of control, which is detrimental to the economy. For this reason, the environment must be created before leaving the dollar exchange rate completely in the hands of the market. Banks do this because there are multiple exchange rates for the dollar in the market. Bangladesh Bank is responsible for this.
The economist said that the foreign exchange reserves should be kept where they are now. It should be kept at 17 to 18 billion dollars, Bangladesh can do it; Trying for that. For this, Bangladesh is trying to borrow from friends. Saudi Arabia can borrow two billion dollars from China, India. But it is not a loan to reach the level of Sri Lanka. This dollar borrowing is a preventive measure against going to the level of Sri Lanka or Pakistan. He said, increasing revenue collection is not possible without complete automation. In this case, the means of face-to-face meeting or phone communication between the taxpayer and the collector creates obstacles in the way of revenue growth. In order to increase revenue collection, attention should be paid to these issues.
Dr. Abdur Razzak said that it will be difficult to bring back the basic areas of macroeconomics quickly due to the economic uncertainty associated with political instability for the first time. He said, there has been a negative impact on the economy. Imports that would drive the economy have fallen. Revenue is also negatively impacted due to lower imports. This will result in reduced revenue, a negative impact. For this, apart from finding new taxpayers, corruption in revenue collection should be removed, automation and tax collection system should be speeded up.
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