The financial stimulus package the Bangladeshi government announced on Sunday to help face the global economic recession challenges has drawn different reactions in the country.

Some business leaders have expressed their disappointment at the "neglect of the readymade garments sector, the country's biggest foreign exchange earner, in the package, but experts said the package would bring positive result in the long-run, according to local reports on Monday.

Bangladesh's Finance Minister AMA Muhith Sunday unveiled a 34.24 billion taka (about US$489.14 million) stimulus package for the last quarter of current fiscal (July 2008-June 2009) to help deal with the impact of global financial meltdown on the country's economy.

Under the package, 13 percent of the fund goes for raising the cash incentives for jute, leather and frozen goods export sectors, which experienced negative growth in the last several months amid the global recession.

But the apparel exporters who cried for government' help to face "unprecedented" challenges got no allocation of any additional incentives under the newly-unveiled package.

"The government declared a cautious stimulus package and it would not fulfill the demands of any sector," President of the country's apex trade body Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) Annisul Huq was quoted by leading daily The Financial Express as saying.

Huq said the readymade garments sector, which accounts for more than 76 percent of the country's total exports, should have been given more importance.

The FBCCI last month demanded 35 billion taka (about US$500 million) from the government to help the garment exporters alone face the recession under its proposal of a total 60 billion taka (about US$857.1 million) rescue package.

Apparel exporters said though the statistics showed growth in the garment export in the last months, the prices and demand of their products are decreasing in overseas markets and the rate of growth has been declining.

Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has also expressed dismay over the package, saying the announcement created disappointment in the entire clothing sector, The Financial Express report said.

BGMEA president Abdus Salam Murshedy urged the government to reconsider the packages as their export orders fell fast over the past three months.

Regarding no subsidy to the apparel sector, Bangladesh's finance minister on Sunday said, "We've already declared different facilities including policy supports and bank loan rescheduling facilities for the sector which has not been so far affected by recession largely."

Of the total amount of the package, some 58 percent will go to agriculture sector as subsidies and agriculture loan recapitalization facility, while power sector and social security sector shared 18 percent and 11 percent respectively.

In terms of these allocations, Director General of state-sponsored think tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) Mustafa Kamal Mujeri said the stimulus package would bring positive result in the long-run.

"An important aspect of the package is that it has focused in the domestic front while prioritizing power and agriculture sector," Mujeri told The Financial Express.

"The government is trying to offset the negative impact of the global recession on the export sector by increasing competitiveness and reducing cost of production," Mujeri said.

If power production goes up, it would decrease the cost of production and eventually exporters could be able to increase their competitiveness, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2009)