Dhaka, Jun 2 – Claiming that the whole of the proposed budget is ‘bright’ and there is no weakness, Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Friday ruled out the possibility of cancelling the decision of imposing excise duty on bank accounts.“I think it’s enough to keep those have less than Tk 1 lakh deposit in bank fully out of the purview. It’s very difficult to define the rich. But, I know people who keep Tk 1 lakh or more into their bank accounts seem to be rich enough and are capable of bearing the expenditure of the excise duty,” he said.
The veteran Finance Minister was responding to a volley of questions at a post-budget press conference in the capital’s Osmani Memorial Auditorium.
Earlier on Thursday, Muhith unveiled a Tk 400,226 crore ambitious budget for the next fiscal year (2017-18) with a growth target of 7.4 percent, expecting to open up a new horizon for Bangladesh through some initiatives ahead of the next general election.
According to the proposed budget, accounts with balance between Tk 1 lakh and Tk 10 lakh may be slapped with Tk 800 excise duty any time of a year.
Confessing that the new budget is ambitious, the Finance Minister said each and every budget he had placed had been ambitious, too.
Responding to a query, he said the price of rice has gone up recently due for the natural calamities like flashflood in the seven haor districts instead of the impact of the proposed national budget. “But, I think the price will go down as we’ve enough stock and we’ll be able to influence the market,” he added.
Asked about the gas price, Muhith said it will be costlier in 2018 if the dependence on importing gas goes up. “There was no change in the gas price in the proposed budget.”
Responding to a query about the imposition of uniform 15 percent VAT, he again claimed that the prices of goods will not shoot up as a total of 1,043 products have been kept out of the purview of the VAT.
The Finance Minister said in the proposed budget, the VAT-free turnover ceiling has been raised to Tk 36 lakh from Tk 30 lakh while the threshold for registration under VAT has been raised from Tk 80 Lakh to 1.5 crore. “As a result, many small and medium businesses will come under this group (VAT-free turn over ceiling and threshold for registration),” he added.
Responding to another query, he claimed that the remittance inflow has not declined; rather there has been low rate of growth.
He also hinted that the government will subsidise the cost of sending inward remittance and it will be made effective from July. “It’s assumed that the inward remittance flow has slowed down. But, it’s not like that. Actually, the inward remittance flow has increased in other channels………in terms of growth, remittance is still growing and everybody should keep it in mind,” he said.
Muhith also ruled out the apprehension of increasing trend of load-shedding in the country as ‘baseless’, saying the power generation capacity will rise to 20,000 MW by 2018 and 24,000 MW by 2021.
About the interest rates of the savings certificates, he said the government has decided to review the rates at least once in a year. “We’ll soon make a decision. Because, the difference between the market interest rates and savings certificates should not be big and it must be reasonable. We’ll review the interest rates within the next two months.”
Muhith told another questioner that he did not feel discomfort while placing the budget, saying, “I think I’ve delivered the best budget of my life and for that I myself and my entire administration had to do a lot of hard work.”
Regarding the quality of the government’s budget implementation capacity, he said over the last eight years, the budget size has been increased to Tk 318,000 crore from Tk 91,000 crore. “So, how can I say that there is a problem in our implementation capacity? This is enormous development of capacity and absolutely unprecedented in the history of this country.”
In reply to another question, the Finance Minister said he does not think there is plundering of fund in the private banks although there are some problems in one or two banks which there are trying to sort out.
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury and Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal also responded to questions from reporters from the dais while State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan, Bangladesh Bank Governor M Fazle Kabir were, among others, present. – UNB
