"Political governments give more importance to political activities and programmes. A non-political government has no compulsion in this regard," FBCCI President Mir Nasir Hossain told reporters after a pre-budget meeting with Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam at the Finance Ministry.

"The government will work on economic development… the budget will play a catalytic role to industrialisation, exports, employment and economic growth," he said, expressing satisfaction over the adviser's response to their pre-budget proposals.

Mir Nasir led a FBCCI delegation that included vice presidents Mohammed Ali and Dewan Sultan Ahmed to submit their pre-budget proposals to the finance and planning adviser.

Major proposals include imposing specific import duties on some essential commodities, allowing tax holiday so long the country remains least developed, equal opportunity for the domestic and foreign investors, continuing subsidy, reduction of taxes and duties, reducing harassment by tax officials and lowering interest rate on bank loans.

"We'll consider many of their proposals with importance because they (private sector) are the driving force. However, few of their proposals are not directly related to the budget," the finance adviser told reporters after the meeting.

Replying to a question, he said the government is considering specific import duties on some essentials, but a decision is yet to be finalised.

Dr Aziz said the apex trade body appreciated the measures taken by the government in the areas of ensuring governance, curbing corruption and keeping the prices of essentials at a tolerable level.

"The prices mainly remained stable while few items show declining trend, and one or two increasing trend," he said, adding that the prices of edible oil and milk powder marked increase.