Finance Minister AMA Muhith has outlined targets and strategies for generating employment in the proposed budget for fiscal 2017-18.

He said around two million workers enter the labour market each year, of which 400,000 on average find employment abroad.

“This year, the total number of overseas employment may exceed 600,000. In the domestic market, therefore, annually 1.6 million jobs on average have to be created,” he said.

Muhith said the structure of Bangladesh’s economy is undergoing robust changes and the share of industry and service sectors in GDP is gradually rising.

"Capital-intensive technologies including mechanisation of agriculture are gaining popularity,” the minister said. “In this backdrop, we are taking special steps to generate employment opportunities for the new entrants in the job market.”

A recent survey by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics or BBS showed that 2.6 million people are still jobless even though 1.4 million new jobs have been created in Bangladesh since 2013.

At the same time, people have been desperately leaving the country to find jobs abroad and taking a perilous sea journey.

Dr Ashikur Rahman, a senior economist at the Policy Research Institute or PRI, said the employment data is not “reliable” in Bangladesh as it is a mathematic calculation based on the GDP growth.

“One percent GDP growth means 250,000 jobs have been created. So, 6 percent GDP growth means 1.5 million jobs have been created,” he explained.

Rahman said in Bangladesh, construction and infrastructure development getting priority means unskilled jobs are being created.

“You will not get labourers in a village for digging mud, but at the same time you will find many unemployed graduates.”

He said billions of taka are going out of the country from the jobs in managerial positions. “It is not that they are scientists or they are doing a transplant surgery here. They are working in the managerial positions.”

The finance minister said in order to meet a skills deficit at the mid and upper levels of management in the industry sector, a programme titled 'Executive Development Programme’ or EDP has been introduced.

Curricula have also been developed to produce 'world-class managers'. A nine-month diploma course will be offered under these curricula.

“Two well reputed universities from public sector and another two from private sector have been engaged under this programme.

“As a result, dependence on foreign managers will decrease on the one hand, and on the other, a pool of high-quality managers will be available to meet the demand of future industrial growth,” Muhith said.

In his speech, the minister said they had also planned “to continue providing necessary credit and input assistance in agriculture sector to prevent rise of unemployment in this sector”.

“We will take effective steps to divert the increased workforce to emerging industry and service sectors.

“By adopting labour-intensive strategies in the process of urbanisation, an adequate number of jobs will be created in the transport and construction sectors,” he said.

The government, according to him, will continue its efforts to expand the garment sector together with improving its working environment which will encourage employment of more women in this sector.

Slow adaptation to changing technology and production techniques often creates unemployment. “In this regard, we will impart necessary training to workers to improve their skills,” he said.

“We will take necessary steps to provide training and micro-credit facilities to expand opportunities for self-employment."

Employment-generating schemes for the ultra-poor under social protection programme such as KABIKHA (Money for work) and TR (Test Relief) programmes also contribute to generating more jobs, he said in the speech.

The finance minister said a considerable number of jobs will be created through various projects under development schemes of the government.

“We have already taken a number of steps to expand our labour markets abroad.

“In order to explore potential labour markets, we are encouraging private sector while promoting labour diplomacy at the government level.”

He told the parliament that Initiatives to send workers abroad at a low cost under government arrangements are going on. In order to simplify the process of overseas employment, online services will be expanded.

“We are planning to set up technical training centres at all Upazilas and modernise the existing ones,” he said.

The finance minister said they had been laying “special emphasis on developing skills of our working population as one of the key drivers of economic development”.

“In fact, there is no alternative to enhancing skills of working population for uninterrupted, rapid and sustainable development.”

The proposal to set up National Skills Development Authority under the Prime Minister’s Office recently received the cabinet’s nod.

The NSDA will take steps to enhance the overall productivity in the country through coordination among all ongoing skills development activities undertaken by the 22 ministries/divisions.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has proposed to increase the excise duty on bank accounts with large debit or credit balance in the fiscal 2017-18 to boost revenue collection.

Accounts with balance between Tk 1 lakh and Tk 10 lakh at any time of a year has been proposed to be brought under a duty of Tk 800 excise tax from existing Tk 500.

The finance minister, however against impose any excise duty on the accounts where the balance, whether debit or credit does not exceed the limit of Taka 1 Lakh at any point of a year.

Similarly, Tk 2,500 will be imposed instead of existing Taka 1,500 in cases where the balance exceeds Tk 10 Lakh but does not exceed the limit of Taka 1 crore.

Tk 12,000 will be imposed instead of existing Tk 7,500 in cases where the balance exceeds Tk 1 crore but does not exceed the limit of Tk 5 crore and Tk 25,000 will be imposed instead of existing Tk 15,000 in cases where the balance exceeds Tk 5 crore.

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The Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) has reviewed the pledges different government agencies made to them in January for easing the doing business process in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is currently ranked 176th among 190 countries in the World Bank’s ease of doing the ranking.

The new state entity, which was formed by merging the Board of Investment and Privatization Commission in October last year, set an ambitious target of securing a place below 100 by 2021, which means at least 15 notches improvement would be required a year.

BIDA discussed it with the different ministries and come up with an announcement on Jan 1 that all process of starting a business would be completed by seven days in place of 19.5 days now.

In line with the reform, the agency like RAJUK would give construction permits within 60 days instead of current 278 days and processes of getting electricity connection would be completed by 28 working days in place of 404 days.

Certified copy of registered deed will be made available right at the time of registration while a copy of the deed will be sent to the AC land for mutation immediately after registration.

Representatives of those departments during the Wednesday’s review meeting at a hotel said that they were implementing the pledges they made in Jan.

A Rajuk official said they established a help desk so that investors get information. They also set up a suggestion box to get comments from the investors.

A task force has been created to monitor the progress. 15 days is now required for land use clearance certificate which is supposed to take 3O days. Special project permission days have been reduced to 15 days from 45 days.

A power division official said due to their reforms; businesses are getting electricity even within 15 days if they have all the completed papers.

A National Board of Revenue official said they had taken the step to enact a new customs act which can be passed by the parliament anytime. They are also doing automated system of customs data and creating a ‘national single window’ for reducing the cost of doing business.

Abul Kalam Azad, Chief Coordinator for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Affairs in the Prime Minister's Office, thanked those who were implementing their plans for easing the process of doing businesses.

But he said he would write to the government departments who remained absent during the review asking them the reason.

“We have to ensure accountability and our effort should be to do better and better,” he said. “We must try, fix challenging target so that we can go below 99 or close to the 99 in the ranking.”

He also suggested them to see whether the number of papers required for a complete application of starting businesses or getting any approval can be reduced. “We have to progress gradually to reach the vision 2O21 of the Prime Minister”.

He also suggested a monthly review of the steps various government departments are taking to lure investors.

BIDA executive chairman Kazi M Aminul Islam said every agency took on the responsibility during the January exercise before their announcement.

“This year we got only five months. We are expecting the results of our activities in the 2O18 index,” he said as the next ease of doing business report would be released in October this year with the data collected till May.

He said foreigner investors would need not to come to BIDA for getting visa recommendations. They will get that online as part of easing the visa process.

Law Ministry’s Senior Secretary of the legislative and parliament affairs division Mohammad Shahidul Haque and Bangladesh Bank governorFazle Kabir also spoke at the meeting.

The next review will take place after three months.