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Finance adviser sees no effect of US recession on local economy

Supports power tariff hike move

UNB, Dhaka
Finance and Planning Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam yesterday said the country's economy. having no major stress at present, is unlikely to be affected largely due to the near recession in the United States and elsewhere.
"This is because we're mostly dependent on the multilateral donors, more than what we re dependent on the bilateral donors," he told reporters at his planning ministryoffice.
Aziz said the replenishment of foreign aid from the multilateral donors has not been in declining trend while they would not fall back on their commitment.
Because, he added, the major portion of their replenishment commitment was from the internal resources
(profits from earlier funding) of the main donors like Asian Development Bank and World Bank.
He said the aid from bilateral donors would depend on how the economic recovery efforts affect their respective budgets.
The finance adviser was talking to reporters on his meeting with Islamic Development Bank (IDB) President Dr Ahmed Muhammed Ali on September 24 in Jeddah, dur ing his personal visit to Saudi Arabia where he performed 'umrah'.
Aziz left here for Saudi Arabia on September 21 and returned home on Sunday night.
Replying to a question, he said the affects of the US economic situation depends on how strong the economic recession. Here, he said, "our case is like that of the im-
portance of being unimportant.”
The adviser said the country's exports, particularly the readymade garments (RMG), still remained in the lower end of the prices. “1 don't think the US economic situation will adversely affect our RMG exports.”
About integration of the country's economy with the global economy, he said Bangladesh has to be cautious about the major sources of foreign exchange earnings like exports and wage earners remittance to avert any major threat from the global economic recession.
The adviser said the next government would put their efforts as much as possible to widen and enhance the duty-free and quota-free market access.
"But, they (next govern-
ment) will have to be more proactive in dealing with bilateral labour issues and try to develop skilled and semiskilled manpower,” he said, replying to a question about possible option for the upcoming government.
He, however, thought that the US recession is unlikely to be very deep as the US government was trying to take a bailout measure for their financial crisis. "It would increase their budget deficit, but improve the confidence level of the market," he said.
Aziz said the impact of the financial crisis was not also acute in other parts of Europe, other than the United Kingdom.
"I don't think we've reasons to be scared. What we'll have to do is to ensure that the economic management works properly," he said, stressing the
need for maintaining adequate social protection and proper utilisation of public resources in addition to general maintenance of law and order situation.
Replying to a question, the finance adviser said he has not yet received the economic data of the first quarter of the current fiscal year ending today (Tuesday). But, he said: "I don't see any signs of stress in the economy at present."
Replying to another question, he said that the problem of energy and power is a major economic concern of the country. He, however, added that the Power Division was still confident that some 300-350 megawatt power would be added by the end of this year.
"There are other proposals that remained under consideration, but you know they are time consuming projects," he said.
About possibility of adjusting fuel price, Aziz’said the energy ministry was working on it. Asked about the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) proposal to raise power tariff by 16 percent, he said: "This was probably a necessity."