Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury said the recently drafted budget, prepared after one to one-and-a-half months of effort, has been appreciated across all levels of the country and its true success depends on effective implementation. He made the remarks while addressing the first meeting with finance department officials at the ministry on Thursday, where the meeting was chaired by Finance Secretary Dr. Md. Khairuzzaman Majumdar.
The minister urged changing negative public perceptions about bureaucracy, stressing that working together can overcome any obstacle and that officials should move beyond traditional practices to adopt innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. He called for meetings to allow free and spontaneous expression of views, mutual cooperation, family-like work environments, direct presentation of problems and ideas, and objective feedback from subdivisions to enable proper decision-making.
He said the government has initiated a coordinated masterplan to develop Cox’s Bazar as an international and regional tourist hub and is reconsidering long-standing 50m and 500m coastal restrictions where development will occur, ensuring environmental protection. Work on an international airport, rail service, and improved road links from Chattogram are underway and will be coordinated to transform Cox’s Bazar into a modern digital tourism city contributing to the goal of a one-trillion-dollar economy by 2034.