The Bangladesh Economic Review, a key budget-related annual publication, will not be included in the official budget documents for the fiscal year (2025-26), according to officials familiar with the matter.
Instead, a Bangla version along with an English version of the publication is expected to be released in October 2025, they added.
The Finance Division of the Ministry of Finance decided this following confusion created last year, when three separate versions of the Economic Review were published with the same title, said an official who spoke to the FE on Sunday.
Traditionally, a Bangla version of the Bangladesh Economic Review, containing data up to March or April, is presented along with the national budget documents in June.
The English version is usually released later in the year-typically in December-with updated data up to June.
However, in 2024, three editions were released: a Bangla version during the budget speech, and the English version in December and later another updated Bengali edition.
Three such issues of the same matter created confusion among the users, including local and international agencies, development partners, students, and researchers – all rely on the Economic Review for authoritative and comprehensive macroeconomic data.
A senior official from the Finance Division told the FE: “There were three versions of the same document last year. It caused unnecessary confusion. As a result, a meeting was held with the secretary of the Finance Division, and a new decision was made to streamline the process.”
He said the government intends to continue publishing the Economic Review, but it will now be released a few months after presenting the budget, incorporating the data up to June each year. The Economic Review was previously suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic due to logistical and data challenges.
The publication consists of macroeconomic sections, GDP, savings, and investment, prices, wages and employment, fiscal policy and fiscal management, monetary management and financial market development, external section, agriculture, industry, state-owned enterprises, power and energy, transport and communication, human resource development, poverty alleviation, and private sector development.
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