Two fresh stimulus packages provided to cushion corona crunch.

Smaller enterprises and vulnerable groups continue to feel the crunch of a prolonged pandemic and the government announced two fresh stimulus packages totalling Tk 2,700 crore to help them out and thus spur the recovery in the economy and livelihood. An official announcement Sunday said the two corona-crisis-recovery packages are meant to infuse dynamism into cottage, micro and medium industries to offset the COVID-19 blowback, improve rural marginal people's livelihood and expand social- safety nets for extreme poor, aged-people and widows. "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has approved these two stimulus packages the implementation of which will start shortly," said a Finance Ministry press release Sunday. The release said with the addition of two latest packages, the total number of stimulus packages now stood at 23 with an overall outlay of Tk 124,053 crore, which is 4.44 percent of Bangladesh's GDP. The size of the freshly approved first stimulus package is Tk 1,500 crore, and out of this amount, Tk 300 crore will go for the SME Foundation for expanding its operations meant for the cottage and SMEs alongside facilitating the female entrepreneurs. Besides, Tk 100 crore will be provided to BSCIC, Tk 50 crore to Joyeeta Foundation, Tk 50 crore to the NGO Foundation to undertake various programmes to improve the livelihood of marginal people, Tk 300 crore to Social Development Foundation, Tk 300 crore to Palli Daridro Bimochon Foundation, Tk 100 crore to Small Farmer Development Foundation, and Tk 300 crore to Bangladesh Rural Development Board. And the size of the fresh 2nd stimulus package is Tk 1,200 crore and it will be spent for bringing the down-and-outs like poor people, widows and husband-abandoned women of some 150 upazilas under the government allowances in the next fiscal year (FY22). The Finance Division recently had organized three view-exchange meetings on the overall aspects of stimulus packages and economic recovery in the wake of the pandemic that continues to take its...