Dhaka, May 14 -- Prime Minister Tarique Rahman instructed the revenue authority to pursue predictable tax regime to uphold investor confidence as the new budget outlook was set out Thursday.

"Policy consistency must be maintained in the upcoming national budget," he said during over an eight-hour meeting at the Secretariat with National Board of Revenue (NBR) officials on the nitty-gritty of the new government's maiden budget in the making

Officials say this is the first time they have seen a prime minister intensively scrutinize the tax proposals to check its rationality in public interest.

"It is the longest pre-budget meeting with a PM in Bangladesh's history where the head of government carefully approved the tax proposals for next...