Deflating criticisms about big budget sans capacity building, Finance Minister AMA Muhith Friday said government's budget-implementation capacity had enormously increased in recent years that would help out.    
He also observed that public investment had helped expand the economy until 2015 as private one shrank that time for some troubles on the domestic front.
"More than 80 per cent of the economy is led by private sector and the private investment was not satisfactory until 2015, and that time growth came from public investment," he told reporters at a post-budget press conference.
Mr Muhith said private investment is now picking up from its 'stagnant'-like situation after 2015. Such 'unfortunate' situation came on the back of 'political grounds'.
"The budget-implementation capacity got enhanced to Tk 3.18 trillion as of latest statistics from Tk 91,000. Doesn't it mean that our capacity has increased?" he asked the journalists, giving the media to judge the quality of government expenditure.
The finance minister said utilisation of foreign aid also increased and as a reflection of it the government this year planned to take higher foreign funds to meet its deficit.
The government plans to take $7.6 billion to fund its deficit which is equivalent to 5.05 per cent of the GDP of the next financial year.
He said there will be no impact of the implementation of the VAT although many believe that this will cause inflationary pressure on the economy.
Responding to a query about the imposition of uniform 15 per cent VAT, Mr Muhith again claimed that the prices of goods would not shoot up as a total of 1,043 products have been left out of the purview of the VAT.
The finance minister mentioned that in the proposed budget, the VAT-free turnover limit has been raised to Tk 3.6 million from Tk 3.0 million while the threshold for registration under VAT has been raised from Tk 8.0 million to 15 million.
About his hint in his budget speech that gas tariffs could increase in 2018, he said: "I just gave a warning on the issue, not price rise now. This rise may happen at the time when import will start."
Mr Muhith said the government from now onwards will review yield rates of saving certificates annually to minimise its gap with competitive banking interest rates on deposits and hinted that the first review would take place within the next couple of months.
"The yield rates of the borrowing tools will be higher in comparison with the market-based interest rates, but gap like 7.0 per cent in commercial banks and 11 per cent in national savings certificates [must] go," finance minister told the reporters.
The ninth-budget presenter termed the latest one his 'life's best budget', giving a new definition of budget as budget means 'ambitious' and such ambition helped the country reach a new plateau from lower plateau and generated hope for climbing onto a much "higher plateau".
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury, Planning Minister AHM Mostafa Kamal and state minister for finance MA Mannan joined the conference, organised by the finance division at Osmani Auditorium.
The finance minister said scams in the banking sector happened as in other parts of the world. He said there are some allegations about scams in private commercial banks as well.
Mr Muhith said the central bank is taking action against the banks.
The finance minister said the budget has allocated 54.17 per cent for poverty alleviation and more than 28 per cent for minimizing gender inequality.
He said the volume of remittance has fallen in formal channels but it possibly rose in informal channels.
The finance minister, however, said the government will provide subsidy to attract the remitters to send their hard-earned money through formal channels.
"We may take a marginal cost for sending money as part of encouraging remitters to  use the formal channels as informal channel is less costly," he said.
Replying to a question on increased prices of rice, Mr Muhith said the price will not remain high and stabilise shortly.
"To my mind, the price will not remain so high."
Speaking on the issue, the agriculture minister, Matia Chowdhury, said there will be no shortfall of rice on the market and this (crisis) is owing to untimely floods coupled with a disease named blast.
The agriculture minister said the open-market sale and other types of food-support programmes will continue until the next harvest in the haor areas.
She said the government now put stress on Aus, another crop season, to compensate for the loss of boro, the biggest rice crop in the country.
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu said there is a group of traders who play foul on minor grounds.
"This is unexpected that some traders cash in on the holy month Ramadan by raising the prices of essentials," he said.
Mr Amu said this is very much unfortunate that the government has to prepare to handle such undue practices.
The industries minister said the traders who do such foul play also pay for such manipulated prices of the essentials.
However, the finance minister said the budget proposed two separate rates for cigarettes as the government do not want expansion of the intentional brands on the local market.
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Source: The Financial Express