SANGSAD BHABAN, Mar 10, 2019 (BSS) – Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today said
the country’s macro-economic indicators, including export earning, remittance
and foreign exchange reserve, were satisfactory in the first quarter of the current
fiscal (2018-19).
He made the statement while placing the report on budget implementation
progress of the first quarter (July-Sept), the trend of income and expenditure, and
macroeconomic analysis.
Highlighting some key macroeconomic indicators during the first quarter (July-
Sept) of the current fiscal, the Finance Minister said the revenue collection under
the National Board Revenue (NBR) rose by 12.9 percent, while the overall public
expenditure increased by 10.38 percent, the ADP implementation rate was 7.88
percent during first quarter of current fiscal which was 10.2 percent in the last
fiscal.
He said the export earnings rose to US$ 9.98 billion in first quarter of current
fiscal, which was US$ 8.1 billion during the same period of the previous year. The
export earning rate increased by 14.48 percent during the first quarter of current
fiscal, while it was 7.61 percent in previous year, he added.
Kamal said the import expenditure increased by 11.48 percent to US$ 14.69
billion, while it was 28.39 percent in last fiscal.
He said the growth for opening import LCs is 0.35 percent, the private sector
credit flow increased by 14.67 percent. “The rate of remittance increased by
13.73 percent during the first quarter of this fiscal while it was 4.48 percent
during the same period of last fiscal,” he added.
Noting that the foreign exchange reserve is almost stable, the Finance Minister
said it was US$ 31.96 billion on September 30 in 2018.
He said the overall inflation increased to 5.68 percent in September 2018 from
5.55 percent in September 2017, while the rate of general point-to-point inflation
came down to 5.43 percent in September 2018 from 6.12 percent in September
2017.