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Next budget to focus on agriculture, power, rural infrastructure

Finance adviser says

Staff Correspondent
Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam yesterday said the next budget would be somewhere near Tk one lakh crore with concentration on agriculture, power and rural infrastructure.
He said, "Size of the budget for fiscal year 2008-09 will be a little more or less than Tk 99,500 crore. The figure has yet to be finalised as
we are still working on that."
Finance ministry sources said the exact size would be known once the government settles how much to spend in subsidies for different sectors.
Aziz said the budget would be announced on June 8 or 9 [Sunday or Monday]. The schedule is different than other years' as the government usually announces its annual financial plan onThursday.
The finance adviser said they believe the deficit this time would remain within 5 percent of GPD.
He was replying to queries from reporters after attending a seminar organised by Privatisation Commission.
The finance adviser said size of the Annual Development Programme (ADB) in the upcoming budget would beTk25,500 crore.
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In the current budget, it is Tk 22, 500 crore revised from original Tk 26,500 crore. The budget for the running fiscal stands at Tk 79,614 crore excludingTk 7,523 crore liabilities of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.
About the government's budgetary plans, he said it would continue subsidies for fertiliser and petroleum products.
Sources said size of the budget would increase mainly because of the government's decision to keep subsidising fertiliser, petroleum products and food.
The finance adviser said the current year's revised budget would rise significantly from the actual allocation due to growing subsidies on petroleum products and fertiliser, and swelling cost of food imports.
Sources said the current fiscal year's revised budget would be over Tk93,000 crore.
UNB adds: Mirza Azizul Islam
yesterday said privatisation needs to be carried out with caution and in a wellthought out manner so that employment is not affected in any away and no room is left for monopoly.
“One of the complaints 1 frequently hear from different quarters and economists is that the enterprises are not operating [well] after privatisation." he said addressing a seminar at a ci ty ho teL
"Once an industry is set up, it has to be permanent,” he said adding, “Privatisation is not a panacea. We'll have to go for privatisation with caution."
Privatisation Commission organised the daylong seminar, titled 'Privatisation of SoEs in Bangladesh: Challenges and Opportunities', with its chairman Mohammed Abu Solaiman Chowdhury in the chair.
LGRD and Cooperatives, Jute and Textile Adviser Anwarul Iqbal and Special Assistant to Chief Adviser for Industries Mahbub Jamil
also addressed the inaugural ses-
The finance adviser stressed the need for determining priority sectors for privatisation and careful sequencing of the sectors selected, followed by the impact assessment ofprivatisation.
He listed the problems that are making the SoEs inefficient. He said the lack of practice in rewarding the good performers and punishing the bad ones are inevitably making an enterprise count losses.
Consequently, he added the government enterprises incur huge losses and are forced to go for deficit financing as well as increase taxes.
“This is an issue that is hardly realised in Bangladesh. Perhaps, this is the reason why there are arguments against privatisation," said the finance adviser.
He also pointed out that the richer section of the society is the main beneficiaries of government subsidies to petroleum and fertiliser.