Stimulus should be spelt: BKMEA
Staff Correspondent

Local knitwear manufacturers and exporters on Saturday said the government should come up with a break-up of the proposed stimulus package worth Tk 5000 crore in the just announced national budget.
The Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association demanded such break-up so that it could clear what would be the allocation to each export-oriented sector under the package.
‘We are not sure whether we would get the share of the package or not,’ said the association president, Fazlul Hoque, at a post-budget press conference at the organisation’s office in Dhaka.
He said the government should come up with a clear-cut announcement in this connection. ‘A quick and clear-cut announcement will help the local manufacturers and exporters to take their own initiatives to defend the recession fall out,’ he said.
In his budget speech on Thursday, the finance minister, AMA Muhith, said, ‘……………….that programmes under stimulus package would continue to be expanded consistent with the need and within our affordability. A provision of Tk 5,000 crore has been made in the next year’s budget to continue the programme.’
Sharing the observation of the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a private think-tank, on the proposed national budget, the BKMEA president said, ‘The proposed budget is very such defensive.’
He said the budget was formulated only to defend the recession fall out, but did not go beyond. ‘The long-term vision is absence in the proposed budget,’ he said.
He, however, welcomed the government’s announcement that it would not let any factory to fall sick due to the recession fall out. ‘But, considering the importance and vastness of the export-oriented sector, it has not got proper attention in the proposed budget,’ he claimed.

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