Govt not worried over growth: Dr Salehuddin

Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed has said that the government is not worried about GDP growth's state since it is concrete by nature.

"The government is not worried over growth as the country's growth is concrete, especially in agriculture..." he said.

The finance adviser, in an interview, was talking to the national news agency at his office at Bangladesh Secretariat marking the completion of three months and subsequently 100 days by the interim government.

He said even if the real growth in such sectors reaches 4 percent, then it is better considering the situation in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Asked whether he is satisfied with the current condition of the economy, the adviser said that growth is definitely needed, but its quality and nature are also important.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the GDP growth of the country in constant prices in the 4th quarter of FY24 was 3.91 percent which was 5.42 percent in the 3rd quarter, 4.78 percent in the 2nd quarter, and 6.04 percent in the first quarter.

Govt not worried over growth: Dr Salehuddin

Dr Salehuddin said that the government is trying to curb the trend of corruption and restore confidence fully among the businessmen. 

"We want to ensure that a few sections of people can't manipulate everything like in the past."

For the flourishing of the economy and the private sector, he opined that a participatory situation, level-playing field, transparency, and accountability are needed in the long term.

About the strong message of the interim government against the corrupt people, the finance adviser said steps are being taken, adding that the government does not want to take coercive measures.

Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), he said, has seized personal accounts of the alleged corrupts, but the business accounts of none have been seized so far even for the big importers and businessmen.

"We're also trying to bring reforms in the revenue sector to further widen the tax net and also not to put added pressure on the taxpayers. In the long-term, we want to reduce poverty, ensure the quality of education and life, and social safety nets and we're progressing in that direction."

The finance adviser said it took three months for the interim government's preparations and mobilisation, but the message is there. 

"Due to our steps, people will now think before committing corruption like buying flats and houses (through amassing illegal wealth) ... people will try to become more accountable," he added.

Asked about the overall performances of the macro economy over the last three months and beyond, the finance adviser said that before the interim government assumed office, a stalemate was prevailing in the economy due to various reasons and inefficiencies of the Awami League government.

"There was a bit uncontrollable situation in the economy," he added.

Firstly, Salehuddin said the banking sector was in a dire state, problems were there in the governance of a good number of banks, a huge amount of money was siphoned off abroad from the banking system, the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) were increasing day after day, the capital market was in a bad shape with debacles taking place one after another.

Besides, he said there were some irregularities in the revenue sector especially in tax, and above all the interim government had inherited high inflation due to various reasons like the printing of money, breakdown in the supply chain which had downgraded the living standards of common people.

Even, he said, the foreign currency reserves came down to almost $18 to $19 billion from $42 billion and all of these happened due to wrong policies by the previous regime in a bid to fix all things 'artificially'.

The finance adviser said this had also had an impact on the exchange rate as imports became very difficult for the country while the performance of exports was more or less good as well as there was a slow pace in inward remittances.

"The biggest problem was there in our energy sector as frequent energy imports put pressure on our foreign currency reserves which are still on side by side the country was dependent on fossil fuel for a long. We've to depend on gas since we don't have fuel oil," he added.

As an alternative, he said the country could not go for renewable or green energy to a large extent while the energy price was hiked by almost 30 percent by the previous government for which the pressure is on all sectors.

"We've to pay the price for energy like LNG ...on the whole the agriculture sector is more or less stable due to the contributions of the common farmers. We've inherited all of those...," he said.

Noting that the image of the country was tainted hugely because the country was unable to pay the import bills, he said the exchange rate depreciated day by day while the businessmen became insolvent during that time.

The adviser said the most important thing was that FDI was not coming at all while the Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) was also low side by side the foreign assistance also came down, adding as a whole, the resource gap, the scarcity of resources, and attraction of FDI came down gradually.

On the whole, he said instability loomed large in the AL regime while there was a sloth in the livelihood of common people.