The government has drastically cut investment target from its savings instruments for the upcoming fiscal year 2013-14 by 32.82 per cent to Tk 4,971 crore from
the current fiscal year target of Tk 7,400 crore.
The government borrowed only Tk 679.03 crore in the first 10 months of the FY 2012-13 which is 9.17 per cent of the target of Tk 7,400 crore.
Officials of the National Savings Directorate told New Age on Sunday that the government had decreased the net investment target in national savings bonds and certificates for the FY 2013-14 due to a lower selling trend in the savings instruments in the last few years.
According to the latest DNS data, the government has fixed a selling target of savings instruments at Tk 20,000 crore for the FY 2013-14, decreasing by 29.89 per cent from the FY 2012-13 target of Tk 28,529 crore.
The government set a target to pay Tk 15,029 crore as capital money to the clients for the upcoming fiscal year against their encashment of savings instruments.
According to the government target for the FY 2013-14, Tk 8,700 crore will be given to the clients as interest money of the saving instruments.
A DNS official said that the government had massively failed to attract the clients to the savings bonds and certificates in the last two years.
The government increased the rate of interest on the savings instruments in the period but the effort virtually failed, he said.
The government was compelled for going to higher bank borrowing in the FY 2011-12 due to a lower trend in selling of savings instruments, he said.
The net investment in savings instruments stood at Tk 478 crore in FY 2011-12 against a target of Tk 6,000 crore and the net investment was Tk 2,056 crore in FY 2010-11, the DNS data showed.
It is almost confirmed that the government is going to miss its annual target of Tk 7,400-crore net investment in the savings instruments for the FY 2012-13 if the ongoing condition continues in the last two months of this fiscal year, the official said.
Under the circumstances, the government has been facing a management crisis of deficit financing for the last two years, the official said.
The soaring inflation was one of the pivotal causes of the lower trend in the selling of savings certificates and bonds in the last two years, he said.
The inflation ate drastically the clients deposit in the period, he said.
The country’s banking sector faced a severe liquidity crisis in the last two years due to a huge amount of government borrowing from the banks, he said.
‘The banks increased the interest rate on deposit products in a bid to meet up their liquidity crunch. As a result, a significant number of clients changed their investment to banks’ deposit from the savings instruments’, he said.
The government may fail again to collect the borrowing target from its savings instruments if it does not give any incentive to the clients in the savings certificate and bonds in the next fiscal budget, he said.
-With New Age input
