Focus more on employment than inflation

The government should put more emphasis on employment generation as its primary task than on minimising inflationary pressure, said Prof Wahiduddin Mahmud on Saturday.
"It's easier to minimise inflationary pressure than to tackle any hurt to certain productive areas," said the former caretaker government adviser at the launch of a book in the city.
The economist was speaking at the launch of Paribartaner Arthaniti (Economy for Change), a book written by leading banker Mamun Rashid.
Mahmud called for the government to prioritise efforts to boost production and employment generation.
According to Mahmud, inflation is not the only reason that creates inequality between the rich and the poor.
"To minimise the gap between the rich and the poor in real sense, there is no alternative to attaching priority to job creation and increasing production," he said.
Former caretaker government adviser Akbar Ali Khan asked local economists to align their researches in line with people's sufferings.
Khan observed that the ongoing global recession would put capitalism at risk.
Another former caretaker government adviser, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, disagreed with Khan and said capitalism had sustained through a big economic recession in the 1930s.
Aziz, the immediate-past finance adviser, said that weak market monitoring is part of the reason for the soaring prices of essential commodities.
Aziz blamed uneven global food prices for the high inflationary pressure that rampaged through Bangladesh last year.
The book by Mamun Rashid features different economic changes that came earlier and the unwanted changes the country could avoid.
"The book highlights the economic changes in both local and global contexts. Bangladesh is at the heart of the focus," Akbar Ali Khan said in his comments on the book.
"Readers of the book will be able to see unfolding economic challenges in a new light," Khan said.
Rashid's book, priced at Tk 225, is up for sale at the Anyaprokash stall at the Ekushy Book Fair.