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Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs

parliamentary_committee · verified (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head
Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury
Role
Chairman (Finance and Planning Minister)
Annual budget
—
Staff
—
Established
1996
Legal basis
Rules of Business 1996 (as amended); reconstituted by Cabinet Division gazette notification dated 24 February 2026 under the Tarique Rahman government

Actively processing Bangladesh's energy security agenda through a rapid-fire meeting schedule (13 meetings in roughly 10 weeks since reconstitution on 24 February 2026); flagship decision is in-principle approval of the Offshore Model PSC 2026 on 7 May 2026, which is expected to unlock international bidding rounds for Bay of Bengal blocks; parallel focus on compressing fuel procurement timelines (42 to 10 days) and approving cumulative emergency fuel oil imports of several million metric tons from Kazakhstan, Indonesia, UAE, and other suppliers.

Recent activity

Provenance & notes

The CCEA is constituted under the Rules of Business 1996 -- no separate statutory act; established_year set to 1996 as the first formal codification under that instrument. The committee has no fixed permanent membership roster: the Finance Minister chairs, senior cabinet ministers are core members, and the minister responsible for the proposing ministry joins as an additional member for that agenda item (consistent with Banglapedia description and the tob.news reconstitution report). Secretarial services are provided by the Cabinet Division. CCEA decisions, once approved by the Prime Minister, have the force of a Cabinet decision and require no separate Cabinet ratification. The 13-meeting count (through 7 May 2026) over approximately 10 weeks reflects high activity driven by energy supply urgency (Middle East war, domestic fuel shortages) and the offshore energy reform agenda. entity_type is set to 'parliamentary_committee' per schema (closest available type -- CCEA is technically a Cabinet committee, not a parliamentary committee in the Westminster sense, but the schema's Literal type does not include 'cabinet_committee'). Foreign loan endorsements: no CCEA-specific foreign loan approval was documented in the 90-day window; such approvals typically flow through ECNEC or the Ministry of Finance/ERD pipeline; the closest action was the Finance Minister-chaired meeting on 27 April 2026 at the Ministry of Finance to repurpose $1.135 billion in WB/AIIB loans, but this was not a formal CCEA meeting.

Sources