Business | Economy
Bangladesh announces Dh530m stimulus package
Aims to boost and provide assistance to export-oriented industries currently facing sluggish demand due to global economic downturn
- By Anisur Rahman, Correspondent
- Published: 00:00 November 27, 2009
- Image Credit: Abdul Rahman,Gulf News
- Abul Mal A. Muhith, Bangladesh Finance Minister, is confident the country’s industries can overcome the downturn.
Dhaka: Bangladesh has announced a stimulus package of 10 billion takas (Dh530 million), the second in a year, to boost export-oriented industries including the major export earning garments sector, negating onslaughts of the global recession.
"The affected sectors will be provided all kinds of required assistance... We will not allow any industry to collapse due to the meltdown," finance minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith told a press conference at his office announcing the package, late Thursday.
Muhith said the measure was aimed at providing financial and policy support to the country's export-oriented industries to overcome the challenges of the recession, as he announced a series of additional fiscal and policy stimulus under the new package.
More support
The package came seven months after it rolled out an identical package to cushion the blow of the downturn against the backdrop of a slide in the country's export earnings, in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
The amount is in addition to the stimulus package, announced earlier in April with blanket coverage of power, agriculture and export sectors. However, it excluded the garment sector which earns the largest exports.
Muhith said the stimulus support with the additional amount would be provided over the next five years to help exports — including the garment sector — increase their competitiveness, maintain strong position in the existing market and explore new avenues with product diversification.
The package was announced a day after US-based Citigroup' forecast that Bangladesh's economy was expected to grow at 6.1 per cent in the next fiscal year (2010-11) after two years' growth of less than six per cent, despite fears of a massive slowdown as predicted by the international lending agencies such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
Praise
Citigroup lauded the government's focus on infrastructure development, expecting it to result in more investments.
However, it cautioned that there were some risks involved, such as low agricultural production, a decline in manufacturing production, particularly due to a sluggish demand for textile exports and poor implementation of the government's various initiatives.
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