BBS
BBS partners with Robi to deliver Bangladesh's 1st digital census data
The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has selected telecom operator Robi as the digital connectivity provider to deliver the country's first digital census data.
The BBS will conduct the sixth population and housing census digitally from 15-21 June this year.
Md Dilder Hossain, project director of National Population and Housing Census 2022, and Adil Hossain Noble, chief enterprise business officer of Robi, signed an agreement Sunday.
Read Rising inflation hurts rural people more than their urban counterparts: BBS
Under the deal, Robi will provide around 4 lakh connections, data, SMS bundles and other digital solutions to the BBS to support the digital census.
Around 3.7 lakh enumerators will collect the population census data from across the country using Robi's network and send them to a central server for processing.
Data will be collected from each household using a computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) system, geographic information system, and tablet computers with data connectivity.
READ: Robi launches iftar distribution programme for underprivileged children outside Dhaka
Robi will also support the BBS's zonal operations and preparedness training. Besides data connectivity, SMS, location tracking, and e-CRM for monitoring call centre support will be used for a smooth census operation.
Dr Shahnaz Arefin, secretary at the Statistics and Informatics Division, said: "Accuracy of census data is extremely important to decide on policy measures that support the country's socio-economic growth."
"In this connection, we found Robi the most suitable partner to provide digital connectivity support for the first digital census of the country."
Read Household incomes fell by 20pc due to Covid-19: BBS survey
M Riyaaz Rasheed, acting CEO and CFO of Robi, said: "Robi is proud to be associated with the first digital population census of the country. We look forward to supporting this high priority national project with our innovative digital solution."
Rising inflation hurts rural people more than their urban counterparts: BBS
Rising trends of inflation has forced rural people to spend more to buy goods than urban dwellers, said a report of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The BBS report said the average inflation in rural areas rose to 6.20 per cent in November. At the same time, the average inflation in the city stood at 5.59 per cent.
Economists say the rise in diesel and kerosene prices has had an impact on the market. In early November, the government increased the price of diesel and kerosene by Tk15 per litre. As a result, fares of all transports have gone up. This has had an impact on overall inflation.
Zahid Hossain, former chief economist at the World Bank's Dhaka office, said the rise in transportation costs has affected the commodity market.
READ: BBS to invite fresh tender for 395,000 tabs from local manufacturers
As diesel and kerosene prices have risen, so have transportation costs. Fare is being taken higher than what has been increased.
The demand in the market is increasing due to these factors, along with rise in inflation.
The state-owned agency revealed that prices of almost all types of daily commodities including rice, pulses, flour are higher in villages than in cities. The people of the village have to spend more money for transportation, medical treatment and furniture
In November, a rural consumer bought a product for Tk106.20, while a customer in the city bought the same product for Tk105. 59. In urban areas, food inflation is 4.37 per cent, while in rural areas it is 5.90 per cent. However, non-food inflation is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. In November, non-food inflation rose to 6.99 per cent in urban areas and 6.78 per cent in rural areas.
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According to the BBS, overall inflation in the country rose to 5.98 per cent in November from 5.70 per cent in the previous month (October). Besides, food inflation rose to 5.9 per cent from 5.62 per cent in October. Non-food inflation rose to 6.17 per cent from 6.78 per cent.
BBS to invite fresh tender for 395,000 tabs from local manufacturers
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) will invite fresh tender to procure 395,000 tabs (tablets) from Bangladeshi manufacturers.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal informed this following the rejection of a tender proposal by the Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase (CCPP) on Monday.
He said the cabinet body rejected the proposal due to the deficit of the supply-firm in the selection criteria.
READ: 40 pc people know about handwashing with water and soap: BBS survey
Earlier, Fair Electronics Limited was selected by the BBS as supplier of the bulk tabs at a cost of Tk 537.12 crore.
Kamal noted two Bangladeshi firms were selected by the BBS and both were local manufacturers of the electronic devices.
“But the committee rejected the proposal of the Fair Electronics and we hope the BBS will invite fresh tender within the next 10 days”, he said.
He said the government prefers Bangladeshi manufacturers to get the job so that the “Made in Bangladesh” products could be supplied for the contract.
The minister said many Bangladeshi firms have now become capable of producing electronic devices locally.
“We want Bangladeshi firms to obtain the capacity to supply such products with good quality”, he added.
Meanwhile, the CCPP approved a total of 15 procurement proposals from different government entities.
Two proposals of the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporations (BPC) received the approval of the committee.
As per the approvals, some 1.6 million metric tons of crude petroleum will be imported from ADNOC of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia at Tk 7,467.06 crore in 2022 and 1.290 MT of refined petroleum will be imported from (1) PetroChina International, Singapore, (2) Unipec Singapore Pte Ltd and (3) Vito Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore at a cost of Tk 7,627.04 crore during the January to June period.
The committee approved a proposal of the Khulna WASA to award a Tk 830 crore construction contract to China GEO Engineering Corporation under Khulna Sewerage System Development project.
READ: Cardiac arrest Bangladesh’s No 1 killer in 2020: BBS
A proposal of the Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority received the approval for increasing the cost of the consultant for Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport Extension project by Tk 200.92 crore.
Joint Venture of (1) Nippon Koei.Co. Ltd. Japan; (2) Oriental Consultants Global Co. Ltd. Japan; (3) CPG Consultants Pte. Ltd. Singapore (4) Development Design Consultants Ltd. Bangladesh now remained engaged in the project as its consultant.
The committee approved three separate proposals of the Bangladesh Chemical Corporation (BCIC) to import a total of 90,000 MT of urea fertilizer from under three lots, each having 30,000 MW.
Qatar’s Muntajat will supply 60,000 MT while local Kafco will supply the remaining 30,000 MT of the fertilizer.
Qatar’s fertilizer will cost $961.17 and $964.83 per MT while Kafco’s fertilizer will cost $893.62 per MT.
Inflation hurts common people in Bangladesh
The rise in consumption after easing Covid-19 curves has pushed the inflation up hurting common people in the country.
Prices of almost all essentials like rice, egg, wheat, garlic, onion, ginger, and turmeric went up in September due to impact of inflation, said the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Bangladesh witnessed food and non-food inflation for 3 consecutive months which forces to change habit and lifestyle of people as their income is affected by the pandemic.
Though the government’s budgetary inflation rate was fixed at 5.3 percent, the actual inflation rate rose to 5.59 percent in September.
Also read: CPD finds 5.3 per cent inflation rate unrealistic as living cost goes up
It means commodity available at Tk100 in 2020, now sells over Tk105.
The BBS updated data shows that both food and non-food inflation increased in July, August and September.
In August the inflation was 5.54 percent. Non-food inflation rose by 6 basis points from the previous month to 6.19 per cent in September while food inflation rose by 5 basis points to 5.21 per cent.
Also read: Inflation declines to 5.26 in May
The impact of rising trend of inflation would directly fall on the shoulders of the lower income people, who have been facing reduced incomes since the start of the pandemic.
The inflation has increases globally, including big economies like Canada and the USA. Fuel oil price hike also impacted on inflation and people have to pay more for goods and services.
KOICA to help generate statistics to indicate progress on SDGs
A knowledge-sharing webinar on strengthening statistical capacity of Bangladesh, focusing on indicators relating to the SDGs (sustainable development goals) was held virtually on Tuesday.
Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in collaboration with Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) under Ministry of Planning hosted the event.
Challenges such as, production of disaggregated and frequent statistics by age, sex, disability and sub-national level, comparability of data, availability of baseline data, conducting a large number of new surveys, technical support availability for regular monitoring, modern technology, etc. still persist that calls for a more restructuring, the webinar emphasised.
Young-Ah Doh, Country Director, KOICA Bangladesh Office, Mohammad Tajul Islam, Director General, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Muhammad Mesbahul Alam, Additional Secretary, Statistics and Informatics Division, among other officials of the government of Bangladesh joined the virtual event.
Read: KOICA takes project on road safety in Bangladesh through ITS
Bangladesh’s standing in big data usage has highly advanced, namely, smart national ID Card database, COVID-19 vaccine registration, population census 2011 database, E-Passport integrated with NID database, national household database, 100 million births registered electronically, etc.
Focus on policy reforms to boost private sector investment: SANEM
Economists at a webinar on Sunday urged the government to focus on policy reforms to boost private sector investment which is essential to stimulate the post-COVID recovery process.
They also remarked that in the absence of comprehensive data collected by national statistical agencies such as Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), it is extremely challenging for policymakers to identify, target or design effective policies to help the worst affected groups of the populations.
The observations came up with the webinar organized by South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) titled “Budget 2021-22: Reality and Expectations” to discuss the importance of the national budget in addressing the challenges of the ongoing pandemic.
READ: 68% of businesses yet to receive any stimulus: SANEM
Dr Selim Raihan, Professor of Economics Department at Dhaka University and Executive Director of SANEM said since the budget for FY 2021-22 is going to be the second budget announced during the pandemic, policymakers should primarily focus on addressing the urgent needs that have emerged due to the ongoing crisis.
“It is extremely important for the policymakers to come to terms with the reality of the current situation and acknowledge the gravity of the socioeconomic crisis that the country is currently facing," he said, stressing upon the importance of COVID-19 management related budget allocations to salvage the health sector through ensuring timely vaccination drives, border controls and building capacity of the medical workforce.
One of the key issues that he highlighted is the lack of proper data collection and monitoring since the beginning of the pandemic.
He also referred to the findings of SANEM’s ongoing quarterly Business Confidence Survey which reveal that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been most negatively impacted due to the pandemic.
Despite the severity of the impact, government stimulus packages for MSMEs have been inadequate, making it even more difficult for them to survive through this unprecedented crisis. As these MSMEs play a vital role in the supply chain and also create employment opportunities for the majority of the workers working in the informal sector, recovery of the MSMEs is a major contributing factor to the recovery of the economy as a whole.
Dr Raihan mentioned that, although GDP growth rate is an important measure to assess the advancement of the economy, it is high time for policymakers to come out of the obsession of repeatedly using GDP and instead focus on socioeconomic indicators such as poverty, inequality and employment to assess the wellbeing of the nation.
“The government needs to properly define the corporate social responsibility of the various business associations. Business associations have an important role to play in this time of crisis. But unfortunately we have seen that at this time they are more occupied with their own demands,” the economist added.
Dr Sayema Haque Bidisha, Professor of Economics Department at Dhaka University and Research Director of SANEM delivered the keynote presentation.
Dr Sayema acknowledged that the budget for the next fiscal year would have to consider both pre-COVID as well as post-COVID challenges.
She pointed out that the existing budget structure suffers from low revenue generation and slow implementation of ADP. Furthermore, despite the consistently high growth in GDP, the pace of employment generation has not been impressive and there has been low spending in human resource development.
“In addition, the pandemic has now impacted the livelihoods of millions due to job losses, business closures and reduction in income. A digital divide has become evident in the education sector and rise in dropout rates and early marriages have emerged as major concerns. In this context, the upcoming fiscal budget will play a critical role in dealing with the pandemic fallouts,” she added.
The presentation highlighted a declining trend in revenue collection in the recent budgets: 83% of the actual revenue target was met in the fiscal year 2016-17 which decreased to 75% in 2017-18 and 74% in 2018-19.
A closer analysis of the composition of the NBR tax revenue reveals that the proportion of income tax in the overall revenue has also declined over the past 5 years. In the fiscal year 2016-17, income tax made up 35.4% of the total tax revenue while in 2021, it declined to only 31.5%.
READ: SANEM finds 70% wage-earners in 4 dists. worse off in a year
The government’s Annual Development Programme (ADP) implementation rate has also been staggeringly low in the current fiscal year. ADP implementation progress over July 2020-April 2021 has been below 50% across several key ministries and divisions including Health Services Division, MoPME, MoHPW, Ministry of Industries, Medical Education and Family Welfare Division, MoWCA, MoSW, Food, Labor and Employment, Planning Division. Furthermore, government domestic borrowing in financing the national budget has also increased from 14.8% in FY 2019-20 to 19.4% in FY 2020-21.
Dr Sayema stressed that the prime objective of the upcoming fiscal budget should be to ensure better health management while restoring the income level of people through employment generation. To attain this objective, she mentioned four key areas of priority: Health, Education, Social Safety Net and Agriculture.
Cardiac arrest Bangladesh’s No 1 killer in 2020: BBS
Cardiac arrest was the number one killer in Bangladesh in 2020, claiming the lives of 180,408 people, which is 21.1 percent of the country’s total 8,54,253 deaths during the year.
NPR awaits govt nod, says statistics head
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is awaiting permission from the government to implement the National Population Register (NPR), Director General Mohammad Tajul Islam said on Thursday.
Inflation in Bangladesh falls slightly in Jan
The inflation rate declined to 5.02 percent in January last from 5.29 percent in the previous month (December).
Inflation falls slightly in December
The inflation rate declined by 0.23 percent on a point-to-point basis in December 2020 as it came down at 5.29 percent last month from 5.52 percent in November 2020.