Adviser on Finance Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said the government is not worried about the status of GDP growth as it is tangible in nature.

“The government is not worried about growth as the country’s growth, especially in agriculture, is tangible…” he said.

The financial adviser was speaking to the national news agency in his office at the Bangladesh Secretariat in an interview, marking the completion of three months and then 100 days by the interim government.

He said that even if real growth in these sectors reaches 4 percent, this will be better considering the situation in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Asked whether he was satisfied with the current state of the economy, the consultant said that growth is definitely needed, but its quality and quality are also important.

According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the country’s GDP growth at constant prices was 3.91 percent in Q4 FY24; This rate was 5.42 percent in the 3rd quarter, 4.78 percent in the 2nd quarter and 6.04 percent in 2020. first quarter.

Dr Salehuddin said the government was trying to curb the trend of corruption and fully restore trust among businessmen.

“We want to make sure that some of the people can’t manipulate everything like they did in the past.”

He stated that a participatory situation, equal conditions, transparency and accountability are needed in the long term for the development of the economy and the private sector.

The financial advisor said that steps have been taken regarding the interim government’s strong message against corrupt people and that the government does not want to take coercive measures.

He said Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) has seized personal accounts of alleged corruption cases, but business accounts of even big importers and businessmen have not been seized so far.

“We are also trying to introduce reforms in the revenue sector to further widen the tax net and not put additional pressure on taxpayers. In the long term, we want to reduce poverty, secure education, quality of life and social safety nets, and we are moving in this direction.”

The financial advisor said the interim government’s preparations and mobilization took three months, but the message is clear.

“Thanks to our steps, people will now think before engaging in corruption such as buying flats and houses (by accumulating illegal wealth)… people will try to be more accountable,” he added.

To a question about the overall performance of the macro economy in the last three months and beyond, the fiscal advisor said a deadlock prevailed in the economy due to various reasons and inefficiencies of the Awami League government before the interim government took office.

“There was a bit of an uncontrollable situation in the economy,” he added.

First of all, Salehuddin said that the banking sector is in a difficult situation, there are problems in the management of many banks, large amounts of money are withdrawn from the banking system abroad, and Non-Performing Loans (NPL) are increasing. With each passing day, the capital market was in bad shape, with one fiasco after another.

He also said that there were some irregularities in the revenue sector, especially in taxes, and that the interim government took over high inflation due to various reasons, first of all, money printing and disruptions in the supply chain, which reduced the living standards of the people. .

He even said that foreign exchange reserves dropped from $42 billion to almost $18 to $19 billion and all of this happened due to the wrong policies of the previous regime to fix everything ‘artificially’.

The financial advisor said this also has an impact on the exchange rate as imports have become very difficult for the country, exports are performing more or less well and there is a slowdown in domestic remittances.

“The biggest problem was in our energy sector, because frequent energy imports put pressure on our foreign exchange reserves, and the country, which is still side by side, has been dependent on fossil fuels for a long time. We have no fuel,” he added.

Alternatively, he said the country could not move towards renewable or green energy on a large scale when energy prices were increased by almost 30 per cent by the previous government, which put pressure on all sectors.

“We have to pay for energy like LNG… the agricultural sector in general is more or less stable thanks to the contributions of ordinary farmers. We inherited all of this…” he said.

He stated that the country’s image was greatly tarnished because the country could not pay its import bills, and that the exchange rate was depreciated every day and businessmen went bankrupt during this period.

The consultant said that the most important thing is that foreign direct investment did not come at all, while Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) was also low, foreign aid also decreased, which resulted in the resource deficit as a whole, resource scarcity, and the attractiveness of foreign direct investments gradually decreased.

He said that on the whole, instability in the AL regime has reached great levels while there is laziness in the livelihood of the common people.