The budget is knocking on the door, we've seen many ups and downs over the years in Bangladesh economy but this time the scenario seems quite worse. Even during covid-19 situation the reserve was in quite good form. But in the dawn of 2022 till now the reserve decreases severely. Who is responsible? there is no such answers to be honest. According to the sources Bangladesh bank USD reserve and the import ratio is drastic. It's shows the forex reserve is 44.05 billion which is the lowest in 18 months. In august 2021 is was 48 billion.
Source :https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/bangladesh/foreign-exchange-reserves
The apparent result is inflation and devaluation of BDT. But the question is are we going down as Sri-lanka did? the answer is no we are not. Lets check some facts, Bangladesh took some very large projects like Padma bridge, Metrorail project, Elevated expressway projects and Ruppur Nuclear power plant Project which is only 2300 MW at a cost of 12.6 billion USD. Also the Bangabandhu satellite projects that could earn a significant amount of revenue as forecasted. But the authority should check the feasibility study of those projects. I am not saying they are not important but in recent context they should put iteration number to the project because the world economy is going down since the beginning of 2022. Which mega project is more important for the people and the economy Bangladesh government should've set the priority. No the damage has been done.
In the upcoming budget the government is going to make some changes to overcome that situation by imposing and relaxing some laws. And the unlimited foreign remittance is one of them. No wonder government is trying to convince the money launderers that they can now bring all those money they lauders over the years without any fear, obviously that's a clever move. But this also will encourage the new launderers as fast process to whitened their money
Source: Business insider Bangladesh
Government is going to impose import ban on 153 items to reduce the reserve deficiency but import ban on office item stationary item such as photocopy machine, used computer and used computer parts is not one of them. The government even increasing the discount amount to a 5% for remittance fighters of Bangladesh which was previously 2.5%. But our foreign policy for our workers still miserable. They are not getting much benefits from our government side this needs a change. And the price differences between bank and local market is huge so people are tend to send money from abroad in illegal ways as they will get a spike in exchange rate, so this needs to be monitored thoroughly.
Source: Business insider Bangladesh
I hope this problems will be solved in a proper way and the 2022-23 budget will a people friendly one. And Bangladesh will not follow the path of Sri Lanka lets cross our fingers on that.