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No touch of reality in budget targets: CPD

No touch of reality in budget targets: CPD

Staff Correspondent

The private research institute Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) has criticised this year’s budget targets, stating that they lack realism.

“The organisation does not support laundering black money with a 15% VAT. Such measures are taken with special interest groups in mind,” said CPD Executive Director Dr Fahmida Khatun in a post-budget briefing at her office in Dhaka on Thursday.

According to the CPD, the budget has been delivered during a challenging period.

“We hoped for innovation in this budget.”

The CPD emphasised the need for creative and bold initiatives within the budget to address current issues effectively. Traditional budget approaches are insufficient to resolve the prevailing challenges, it said.

This budget mirrors previous ones and fails to introduce adequate steps and direction to address the crises arising during this transitional period, the organisation stated.

The government has proposed tax exemptions on several products to reduce prices. While this is a positive suggestion, questions remain regarding its implementation.

Even after tax reductions, market prices often do not decrease accordingly. Simultaneously, social security benefits have not seen significant increases. Also, there are efforts to implement the VAT law, which is part of the IMF’s agenda. However, implementing this law without adequate preparation will be challenging.

The CPD believes that suddenly increasing the revenue board’s target without proper preparation is impractical. The organisation also contends that the budget targets are disconnected from reality.

Moreover, the CPD noted that there is no clear explanation in the budget on how to reduce inflation. Bringing inflation down to 6.5% from 9% within a year is a considerable challenge.

According to the CPD, while the revenue collection target has been set higher to meet IMF conditions, achieving it is unrealistic. The real indicators do not align with the GDP, inflation, reserves, and revenue targets proposed in the budget.

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