Ministries concerned, advisers and government officials will attend the meeting to formulate the budget for the next fiscal year.

This year, the budget formulation will be a tough one as the entire world is facing a serious setback from the coronavirus which was first reported in Chinese city of Wuhan.

Bangladesh has been under a lockdown since March 26 to control the spread of deadly virus bringing the economic activities to a hold.

According to sources, the government is likely to go for a 'recovery plan' in the next budget (2020-19) which will put emphasis on health, agriculture and mega projects. 

It has already announced several stimulus packages worth Tk 95,619 crore, which is 3.3 percent of the GDP, for various sectors in small, medium and big industries, and agriculture.

This will be a pressure on the economy to arrange this huge money although Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina mentioned that if necessary, the funds will be transferred from the ongoing various mega development projects.

The government will procure a total of 21 lakh metric tons of foodgrains this season across the country, which is much higher than the previous season. Of the amount, the government will purchase 8 lakh metric tons of paddy, 10 lakh metric tons of rice, 2.20 lakh metric tons of atap (sunned) rice and 80,000 metric tons of wheat.

A number of officials at the Finance Ministry and National Board of Revenue (NBR) said the arrangement and allocation of money this time will be very tough as the economy is passing through a rough time.

They said the revenue collection is totally stalled as the economic activities of the country are more or less halted.

Different international organisations have already estimated that the GDP this year will be 2-3 percent where it was 8.15 percent last year.

However, from the government side, it was said that the GDP will be more than 6 percent.

They said the good news in this crisis moment is that the country has a very good Boro yield.

"If we can harvest and preserve this crop properly, it’ll be a great sigh of relief for the whole nation that at least the country won’t fall in the food crisis in the coming days," a senior official at the Finance Ministry said.

Quoting international agencies, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina several times hinted that the world might face a famine in the coming days as coronavirus will create a food recession apart from an economic recession.