Md Sanaullah Shahid, EC Chairman of Shahjalal Islami Bank Limited, presiding over its 707th meeting at its head office in the city recently. Farman R Chowdhury, Managing Director, Fakir Akhtaruzzaman, Vice-Chairman, Anwer Hossain Khan, Mohammed Younus and

                                               State Minister for Finance MA Mannan

The central bank will investigate the claims, made in a report by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), that it has lost billions of dollars to illicit flows.

State Minister for Finance MA Mannan, on behalf of Finance Minister AMA Muhith, spoke about the issue in Parliament on Wednesday.

On Monday, the GFI published the report “Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005-2014".

According to the report, Bangladesh lost as much as $75.15 billion or Tk 700 billion to trade misinvoicing and other unrecorded outflows between 2005 and 2014.

Responding to an MP, Mannan said, "There are also doubts about free flow of information across the globe. But we are not brushing away these information."

He said the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Bangladesh Bank will gather information on the smuggling of money and investigate the information in order to stop the trend.

"Theft will always be there, but we must remain alert," Mannan said.

Earlier at a press conference, Law Minister Anisul Huq also said on finding evidence, legal steps would be taken against those who have siphoned capital out of Bangladesh.

Later in Parliament, Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal MP Moin Uddin Khan Badal demanded that the finance minister make a statement on the GFI report.

"Please stop doing other things and answer us in Parliament," he told Muhith.

"How is the money finding its way out of the country? Who are sending this? We don’t know them. Who are those gentlemen?" he asked.

Badal said the finance minister cannot simply shirk his responsibility only by saying that "the money smugglers have very long arms".

"I want clear answer," the MP said.

He also wanted to know what steps the government has taken to stop money smuggling.

"If these gaps in development remain, we will not be able to achieve the status of a middle-income country. We would rather think about how backward we could move," Badal said.

YOKOHAMA, (Japan) May 03: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is set to sit for a landmark meeting here today (Thursday) amid geopolitical tensions brewing at the backyard and protectionist waves sweeping the world over.           

A broiling geopolitical strain between the United States (US) and North Korea already triggers tensions in the Korean peninsula and the adjoining major Asian countries. The protectionist waves in the global north, in the US to be precise, cast uncertainty on multilateral trade regime.      

Amidst such an ambience of uncertainty, Japan is hosting the 50th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) which formally starts Thursday (today).

Besides, the emergence of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Japan's strong endorsement of the initiative on the eve of the meeting show that after five decades of continued operation, the ADB itself is now faced with new challenges.

In fact, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda Tuesday termed the AIIB 'positive for the regional economy' and said the ADB along with the World Bank is not able to fulfil the financing demand for infrastructure construction in the region.

The ADB, however, doesn't find anything worrisome or that much challenging for its existence and operations. At a media briefing Wednesday, Dr Yasuyuki Sawada, its Chief Economist, rather welcomed the AIIB as a partner for filling the gap in infrastructure financing in the region.

"AIIB has already joined with ADB to co-finance development projects," he said while replying to a question at the briefing.  So far, the China-led bank is financing only two projects in Bangladesh and Pakistan and also one in Georgia is in pipeline.

Under the theme 'Building Together the Prosperity of Asia', this year's ADB annual meeting is focusing on the region's growing need for infrastructure as a critical sector towards achieving sustainable and inclusive development.

Regarding the uncertainty over multilateral trade regime and its impact on the growth of Asian countries, Dr Sawada opined that he doesn't find anything much alarming for the region as there is no concrete step or programme taken by the United States or Europe affecting Asia.

He, however, said due to policy uncertainty, there are some pessimistic sentiments on investment and consumption.

Dr Sawada reaffirmed ADB's commitment to trade openness or trade liberalisation as it is supportive for growth and development.

The flagship Governors' Seminar on Friday will discuss reforms in trade, investment, and finance, as well as lessons learned from the past 50 years of development in the continent.

Portraying the growth prospects of Asia, Dr Yasuyuki Sawada also lauded growth story of Bangladesh. "Bangladesh has been achieving stronger growth rate for the last one decade which is closed to 7.0 per cent," he said to a question during the briefing.

The growth rate will be 6.9 per cent in the current fiscal year, as projected by the ADB in its annual development outlook released last month.

He attributed the consistent performance of the country's readymade garment (RMG) industry as major driver of the growth.   

"Despite Rana Plaza collapse and some political instability, the RMG export is robust," he said.

Dr Sawada also mentioned that rising wages in China opened better opportunities for countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.

"As China is shifting its export-oriented production base from lower-end to higher-end and also focusing more on domestic market, Bangladesh and Vietnam, engaged in labour-intensive manufacturing, will be able to enhance their export markets," he said.

Bangladesh is currently the second-largest exporter of clothing on the global market after China while Vietnam is gradually expanding its exports.

More than 5,000 delegates also started to arrive in Yokohama, the port city of Japan which is hosting the annual event of the regional bank for the fifth time since the inaugural meeting in Tokyo in November 1966.

The delegates include finance and development ministers, central bank governors, other senior government officials, business executives, journalists, academics, and representatives from civil society, development organizations, and youth from the Asia-Pacific region and also from North America and Europe.

Delegates are expected to pass some busy time on May 04-07 for the main official meeting and related sessions. Important sideline activities, however, started already.  

Bangladesh Finance Minister AMA Muhith is scheduled to arrive in Yokohama this (Thursday) morning. He is likely to hold a meeting with ADB President Takehiko Nakao in the afternoon.  

The ADB president also registered his participation Wednesday as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate the importance of the event which is going to take place at the official meeting venue Pacifico Yokohama

State Minister for Finance and Planning MA Mannan on Wednesday told Parliament that Bangladesh Bank will probe the alleged siphoning off some Tk 730 billion.

“The central bank will take steps against the looting or siphoning off the money, and the government will provide all-out cooperation so that we can prevent the rise in such activities in the future,” he said.

The junior minister was replying to a supplementary question from Jatiya Party MP Pir Fazlur Rahman in the House in the absence of Finance Minister AMA Muhith, reports UNB.

Citing a newspaper report, Fazlur Rahman said some Tk 730 billion was siphoned off the country in 2014 as per the statistics of Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and wanted to know what steps the government is taking to prevent the ill practice.

Terming the lost amount a big one, Mannan said the looting of such an amount of money is possible from only a large or growing economy.

“We are not rejecting the claim of siphoning off the money. It has come to our notice. The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of our central bank will collect information in this regard,” he said.

He also said the government must take cautionary measures to prevent such looting.

The junior minister, however, said many misleading information alongside good ones also come out in this age of free flow of information.

In reply to a starred question from Tarikat Federation MP MA Awal, Mannan, on behalf of Muhith, said over Tk 1.26 trillion revenue was collected in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, which is some Tk 210 billion higher than that of the corresponding period of the last fiscal year.

Answering to another starred question from Awami League MP Advocate Md Rahmat Ali (Gazipur-3), he said some 1.4 million people have paid income tax.

“Some Tk 390.53 billion was collected in form of income tax till March in the current fiscal year,” he said.

Responding to an unstarred question from the ruling party MP M Abdul Latif (Chittagong-11), Mannan said a good number of cases pending with the National Board of Revenue were disposed of in the six months from June 2016 to December 2016.

There were 13,910 cases, involving Tk 48.02 billion revenue, as of July 31 of 2016. But the number of cases reduced to 9,033, involving Tk 30.60 billion revenue on December 31 of 2016, he said.