Prime Sheikh Hasina is briefing the media at the official post-budget press conference for the first time as Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has been taken ill.
The prime minister will take questions from journalists at the event, which started at 3pm on Friday at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka.
In a rare turn of events on Thursday, Hasina also read a part of Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal’s budget speech in parliament he was struggling with ill health.
A distressed Kamal fumbled through the start of his speech before being allowed by Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury to deliver his address sitting down.
But the minister continued to struggle throughout the session before Hasina came to his rescue and took over from him to complete the address.
In his maiden budget speech posted on the finance ministry’s website, Finance Minister Kamal made a series of pledges to spur economic growth. In the proposed budget, the GDP growth is projected at 8.2 percent for FY20. Kamal hopes to keep the inflation target below 5.5 percent in the new fiscal year.
Of the Tk 5.23 trillion, the proposed budget sets out a revenue target of over Tk 3.77 trillion. More than Tk 3.25 trillion is expected to come through the National Board of Revenue.
The budget deficit will be kept at 5 percent of the gross domestic product.
The government has already approved the Tk 2.03 trillion Annual Development Programme, which is 17.18 percent higher than the revised ADP of the outgoing fiscal year.