Dhaka, Bangladesh
Bangladesh to focus needs of LDCs in Ankara meet: Muhith

Bangladesh to focus needs of LDCs in Ankara meet: Muhith

He says 0.2pc GNI of developed nations should come to LDCs

Finance Minister AMA Muhith Wednesday said Bangladesh will focus the needs of the poor countries in the UN LDC 1V Ankara meet next year and demand 0.2 percent of income of the developed countries for the LDCs, reports UNB.
Efforts would be made to bring it on top of the agenda, seeking flow of more resources of the rich countries to the poor fragile LDCs for their survival. Muhith added environment and resource mobilization would also be in the priority list from Bangladesh side.
He spelt out the government's plan while inaugurating a 3-day international dialogue on 'Exploring a new global partnership for the LDCs in the context of the UN LDC IV' at a city hotel.
Muhith said at present survival of the LDCs is the main agenda. The poor countries are overshadowed by the rich ones.
Regarding the environment issue, the Minister said the LDCs need holistic approach on the climate change as they are the worst sufferers.
In this context he said that identification of the problems should be made before taking up adaptation and mitigation issues.
The Finance Minister also said that Bangladesh would raise the matter of addressing the problems of migrated people due to climate change.
About corruption and getting rid of it Muhith said that the biggest antidote of this diseases is just e-governance.
Regarding the present government's election pledge for 'digital Bangladesh by 2021' he said that corruption would be impossible with digital revolution.
About over all development of the country he said that Bangladesh has done extremely well in human development.
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) organized the dialogue jointly with OECD Development Centre in partnership with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Commonwealth Secretariat and International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD).
CPD chairman Prof Rehman Sobhan chaired the dialogue when founder chairperson of BRAC Fazle Hasan Abed spoke as the special guest.
CPD executive director Prof Mustafizur Rahman, OCED Development Centre deputy director Dr Carlos E Alvarez, UNDP country director Stefan Priesner, Foundation for International Development Study and Research (FERDI), France Prof Patrick Guillaumont, Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF), Tanzania Dr HB Lunogelo and CPD distinguished
Fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya also spoke at the occasion.
BSS adds: The Finance Minister said Bangladesh should come out of the LDCs (Least Developed Countries) status through making an achievement in its human development index.
Bangladesh's performance in human development during last decade is quite good, he said adding "much achievement in this head could be attained through digitization."
The Fourth UN Conference of the LDCs would be held between May 9 and 13, 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey to discuss the actual situation and finalise an action plan for the next decade.
Ahead of this conference, the CPD organized the dialogue to finalize some priority for the Istanbul conference.
The finance minister said corruption is the biggest anti-growth against development and through digitization, corruption could be totally checked.
The government has fixed priorities for discussing at the LDC IV conference, Muhith said "we are working on an action plan for ensuring food security, food production of food items, their supply and social protection.
Dr Debapriya Bhattarcharji said during last three decades, Bangladesh did significant progress in economic indicators while the GDP has been maintaining rise, agriculture, and manufacturing sector marked sustained growth.
"Export growth was 16 pc of GDP, remittance grew by 11," he said adding: "We have now a surplus current balance."
Besides, foreign aid has increased to 2 per cent of GDP, Dr Dr Debapriya said adding structure of the country's macro economy is not bad.
Bangladesh has attained an encouraging performance of almost 89 percent of the threshold requirement, up from 78 percent in 2006, he said country's GNI (Gross National Income) was 54.3 percent of the graduation threshold in 2009.
"If the population growth rate could be reduced to 1 percent per annum, then the projected year of meeting LDC graduation threshold become 2027 instead of 2030," he added.

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