An International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission visiting Bangladesh has sought the government’s plans to cut fuel and fertilizer subsidies. Because these subsidies have increased in recent years.
The issue was raised in a meeting held with various departments of the Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Rahul Anand, head of the IMF mission on Monday.
An official of the Ministry of Finance said that they told the IMF mission that the government currently has no plan to reduce the subsidy in Surrey, but there is a plan to gradually reduce the subsidy in the energy sector.
In yesterday’s meeting, the IMF mission also sought to know how the issue of Tk 50,000 crore arrears due to subsidies in power, energy and fertilizer sectors in the last financial year will be resolved.The government has set a target of around 1 lakh 10 thousand crore rupees as subsidy in the current financial year.
The visiting IMF mission held a meeting with Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Director General Motiar Rahman and other officials yesterday.In the meeting, the IMF mission wants to know when the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics will publish its quarterly GDP report.
Officials of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics said that they have recently released quarterly GDP reports for various years starting from the fiscal year 2014-15 to the fiscal year 2021-2022.They also said that the GDP report for the first quarter of the financial year 2023-24 will be released by January next year.
Meanwhile, the IMF mission has also offered to provide technical assistance to the Bureau of Statistics, as needed, in publishing quarterly GDP reports.The visiting IMF mission yesterday National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman Abu Hena. Also held a meeting with Rahmatul Munim.
