Bangladesh Poverty

Photo: PID Information Minister Dr. Hasan Mahmud exchanged views with journalists on Monday

Bangladesh reduced poverty even amid COVID pandemic: World Bank's estimates

He said, quoting the report titled 'Bangladesh Development Update-Recovery and Resilience Amid Global Uncertainty' published by the World Bank on April 14, that the report said that the poverty rate in Bangladesh has decreased to 11.9 percent in the fiscal year 2021 due to economic recovery even in the Corona situation. In FY 2020 it was 12.5 percent.

Dr. Hasan said, in fact, currently the extreme poverty rate in Bangladesh is 10.5 percent and the poverty rate is 20.5 percent. In other words, the per capita income of the people has increased and the poverty rate has decreased due to the timely actions of the government and the steps taken by the government to keep the economy strong even in this corona epidemic - this is not our statement, this is the statement of the World Bank.

According to the recently published IMF report, Bangladesh is now the 41st economy in the world in terms of GDP, and referring to the position of our economy in PPP, the minister said, 'The country is moving forward despite this corona pandemic, but Mirza Fakhrul Sahib says that poverty in the country is 42 percent. When Begum Khaleda Zia was in power, it was 42 percent. Mirza Fakhrul Sahib is still in Khaleda Zia's era.'

He said, "When BNP was in power, the foreign exchange reserve in Bangladesh was 3.5 billion dollars. Our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government has increased it to 48 billion. Due to the increase in the cost of goods, fuel, transportation in the world, some expenses have been taken from that reserve, now there is 40 billion dollars with which it is possible to meet the import expenses of six months. It is comforting for a country to have foreign exchange reserves equal to three months of import expenditure. At that place we have six months of reserves with which it is possible to meet six months of import expenses."