The Russia-Ukraine war situation has had the biggest impact on inflation, government spending, balance of payments, foreign exchange reserves and exchange rates, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has said.
The minister said this on Thursday while placing over Taka 7.61 lakh crore national budget for FY23-24 at the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) in Dhaka.
Kamal said, “The international supply chain was disrupted by the war and war centric sanctions. At that time, the price of food products, fertilizers and fuel increased a lot in the world market.”
“Developed countries, especially the United States, gradually raised policy interest rates in an attempt to control unprecedented inflation. These changes in the global environment are also affecting our economy. It is noteworthy that inflation in Bangladesh was limited to 5-6 percent in the pre-war decade,” he said.
Kamal said, “The increase in import costs due to post-war global inflation and the depreciation of the country’s foreign exchange rate led to a surge of average inflation to 9.5 percent in August 2022. As a result, it will not be 19 possible to keep the annual average inflation within 5.6 percent as per the target in the current financial year.”
