‘Bangladesh surprised everyone’
Says law minister about investment
Terming climate change and Rohingya crisis major threats for Bangladesh, Law Minister Anisul Huq yesterday said both pose colossal multidimensional consequences and would potentially impact the entire security architecture.
“While climate change is a global issue that needs global ownership and cooperation, the Rohingya crisis on the other hand is an artificial crisis that has been imposed on us unfairly -- as it is a problem between Myanmar and its people,” the minister said.
“In order to resolve the Rohingya crisis, international community, particularly in this region, must come forward and use their political and economic clout to persuade Myanmar in taking back their own people and invest more in social cohesion and peace-building in Rakhine,” he added.
He came up with the remarks while speaking at a workshop on “Doing Business and Investing in Bangladesh” in Singapore. International Finance Corporation (IFC), Enterprise Singapore (ES)and Infrastructure Asia (IA) jointly organised the workshop, a law ministry press release said.
Anisul described Bangladesh’s progress in economic development, saying that “in terms of investment, Bangladesh surprised everyone.”
He said Bangladesh is now the 30th largest economy in the world and has a growing global recognition as a role model of development.
“Asian Development Bank Outlook 2019 mentioned that Bangladesh is the fastest growing economy in the Asia Pacific region. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in its report of 2018 predicted that Bangladesh will be the 26th largest economy, becoming one of the three fastest economies of the World by 2030,” the law minister said.
He said during the last 10 years, Bangladesh’s GDP growth averaged 7 percent -- reaching 8.13 percent in the last fiscal and expected to be 8.2 percent in the current one.
“Inflation has been reduced to 5.4 percent; per capita income increased to USD 1,909; foreign currency reserve raised to USD 32 billion; export earnings more than doubled to USD 41 billion; Human Development Index increasing at 1.6 percent annually, to mention a few economic indicators,” he said.