Roadmap for economic stability has been prepared for new govt

The government has prepared a roadmap to maintain economic stability, an issue that will pose a challenge to the new government, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said.

"There are definitely a lot of ideas for the actions that the new government can take, but I don't want to say that right now," he said after taking office following Awami League's fourth straight win in the elections.

"The PM has said that the biggest challenge for us is the economy. We have to keep the economy strong, maintain our pace and make sure that it does not go off track," he added.

He also said that they were going to take steps to increase revenue collection and the foreign currency reserve.

"Even after all these ups-and-downs, we have $25-26 billion (in the reserve). This year, we will not let it go below 30 billion. Our idea is to keep the reserve at 30 billion and above. This is very much possible."

When asked about the government being unable to fulfil the terms set out by the International Monetary Fund, he said that it is not always possible to fulfil all the conditions.

One of the conditions set out by the IMF was to maintain a threshold of net foreign currency reserve, but Bangladesh could not fulfil that condition in June and December last year.

Queried about sanctions from the USA, he replied: "If someone commits a crime, then there is a punishment. Bangladesh has not done anything wrong."

He also responded to questions regarding inflation, which has been at above 9 percent since

"Inflation will be there. Inflation is needed to run the economy. It cannot run without inflation. How much is our inflation right now? How much has it increased? For 8-10 years, we kept inflation to 6 percent. There cannot be a better statistic than that."

Replying to a question about the banking sector, the finance minister said: "We have ensured reforms in the banking sector and we are still alive because of them."

When asked about who the finance minister would be under the new government, he replied that he did not know and that the prime minster would decide.