Dhaka, Sept 9 (UNB) – President of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) Dr Bandar MH Hajjar on Sunday assured Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of his bank’s continued support to Bangladesh in its development efforts.

“The IsDB will always remain proactive over Bangladesh. Dhaka will be its first Regional Hub as the bank has decided to set up such hubs in different countries," he said.

The IsDB President met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Hotel Radisson after the inaugural ceremony of IsDB Regional Hub.

PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters after the meeting.

Dr Hajjar appreciated the economic development of Bangladesh and said its high successes in all indicators should be replicated in other member countries, particularly Africa.

The IsDB President also appreciated the financial management system of Bangladesh as it is successfully improving the social aspects along with economic development. 

He mentioned that IsDB will work for improving the lifestyle of people and committed to continuing its support to Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina extended her thanks to IsDB for its continued support to Bangladesh keeping it on the top of the list. “The IsDB support is very crucial for development,” the PM was quoted as saying. 

She said the government has attached importance to development of the country from rural level. 
“We’ve already ensured food security and reduced poverty to 22 percent, which would be further declined,” she said.

She sought more IsDB investment in various sectors, particularly in agro and food-processing industries, and hoped that the IsDB regional hub would help strengthen mutual cooperation.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, State Minister for Finance MA Mannan, Principal Secretary M Nojibur Rahman, Chief Coordinator in PMO on SDG Affairs Abul Kalam Azad, ERD Secretary Kazi Shofiqul Azam and PMO Secretary Sajjadul Hassan attended the meeting.  

CEO of International Trade and Finance Corporation Engineer Hanisalem Sanbol, Lead Executive Coordinator of IsDB in Asia Dr Jafor Iqbal and Director, CRS Asia Ifran Bukhari accompanied the IsDB President.
 

Dhaka, Sept 8 (UNB) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said the common people are now getting the benefits of her government’s development programmes as it has been able to lower the inflation rate with sustainable GDP growth.

"Bangladesh economy has made a good progress...we’ve been able to lower the inflation rate…it’s now 5.4 to 5.6 percent, and the economy is strong as we’re maintaining 7.78 percent GDP growth. Now the grassroots are getting the benefits," she said.

The Prime Minister was speaking at the 6th National Convention of Krishibid Institution Bangladesh (KIB) its premises here.

Agriculture Minister MatiaChowdhury was present as a special guest at the programme held with KIB President AMM Salehin the chair.  KIB Secretary General MdKhairulAlam delivered the welcome speech.

Returning to power in 2009, Sheikh Hasina said, the Awami League government has taken long-, mid-, and short-term programmes to take the country forward. "We’re now marching ahead with the programmes."  

She said the government wants to lead the country towards prosperity as Bangladesh is now the third largest vegetable-producing country, while 8th in potato, 7th in mango and third in fish production.

"Our country is now totally self-reliant…now we’ve to go for value addition to our products…we’ve to go for food processing as well," the Prime Minister said.

Hasina said the socioeconomic status of people is improving while the local market is expanding. "We can sell our processed foods within the country as well as export those after fulfilling the local demand and earn foreign exchange."

Hasina said the government has given a special attention to food processing and encourage investment in this sector. "We’ll produce more foods, process those, meet our own local demand and export the surplus ones to fetch foreign currencies."

The Prime Minister said the government has also given importance to research to enhance production. “Through research, the government has improved the production of rice, fish and vegetable.  We also decoded the jute genome," she added.

Hasina said the government is providing all-out support to farmers through investing in research and giving all agri-related facilities.

Describing irrigation as the important component of agriculture, she said the government wants to encourage the use of renewable energy for this purpose.

Hasina said she requested the Agriculture Minister to encourage cooperative system for using solar panel in irrigation as its use by a single person is costlier.

The Prime Minister said the Awami League government is in power for the two consecutive times. "If people cast their votes for us, we’ll be in power again, if they don’t we won’t be there in power," she said.

Referring to some natural disasters like floods in the past, Sheikh Hasina said the agriculture sector is first affected by various calamities like early and long-lasting floods, draughts, landslides, tidal upsurge and earthquakes. 

Keeping these in mind, she said, the government has been developing modern food storages and silos in the county to ensure up to 22 lakh metric tons of food storage to meet crisis during any crisis.

She sharply criticised the post-75 governments like of Zia, Ershad and Khaleda who never wanted Bangladesh to be self-sufficient in food.

Governments after 1975 violated the agriculture policy framed by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and they never wanted development of the farmers and improvement of the lifestyle of the common people.

They destroyed institutions like BADC for which the country could not achieve desired development in the agriculture sector, she added.

Earlier, the Prime Minister inaugurated the convention by hoisting the national flag and releasing doves and balloons.

President and CEO of IFDC Scot J Angel also spoke on the occasion.

 
Dhaka, Sept 7 (UNB) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday said the new book containing the secret documents of Pakistani Intelligence Branch (IB) on Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will provide an immense opportunity to people to know about the Father of the Nation properly and elaborately.
 
"To me, it’s the diamond out of a coalmine. We’d been able to find the diamond mine inside the coalmine," she said.
 
The Prime Minister was speaking at the publication ceremony of the first edition of 'Secret Documents of Intelligence Branch on Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman' at her official residence Ganobhaban.
 
Emeritus Professor Rafiqul Islam chaired the function while Bangla Academy Director General Prof Shamsuzzaman Khan was the discussant.
 
Sheikh Hasina, the elder daughter of the Father of the Nation, said there is a priceless depot of information in these books.
 
"The IB reports are against Bangabandhu. There’s nothing in favour of him, everything is against him. Why have we published these reports? It’s my interest that by this publication, people will know each and every activity, move and speech of the Father of the Nation from 1948-71. There’re so many information there," she said.
 
The Prime Minister also said the IB reports will give the readers, researchers and others an opportunity to find out the most valuable information about Bangabandhu. "Country’s people will be able to know a lot about the Father of the Nation."
 
Mentioning that there are some questions about how Bangabandhu had contributed to the Language Movement as he had been in jail at that time, Hasina said, “The hostile attitude of a section of people will be removed after reading these documents."
 
Explaining the reason behind the publication of the IB reports, she said, “I took the step to publish those as country’s people will be able to divulge truth from these. They’ll know the history of Bangladesh. They’ll be able to know how we got the independence."
 
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr Javed Patwary, Golam Mostafa of Hakkani Publishers, Father of the Nation Bangbanadhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Memorial Trust Member Secretary Sheikh Hajizur Rahman and Curator Nazrul Islam Khan also spoke at the programme.
 
Bangabandhu Memorial Trust is funding the publication of the book. Hakkani Publishers will publish the book in 14 volumes.
 
Pakistani Intelligence Branch (IB) used to make reports on Bangabandhu every day.
 
The book will contain different information on the country’s War of Liberation and founding of Awami League, letters written to Bangabandhu by his party leaders and workers, relatives and speeches delivered by him at different meetings and public rallies.
 

Dhaka, Sept 2 (UNB) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is set to address a press conference on Sunday about the outcomes of her just-concluded visit to Nepal for attending the 4th Bimstec summit.

The press conference will be held at her official residence Ganobhaban at 4:00 pm, PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said.

The Prime Minister visited Nepal on August 30 and 31 to attend the two-day summit of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec).

Dhaka, Sept 2 (UNB) - Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina started briefing journalists at her official residence Ganobhaban about the outcomes of her just-concluded visit to Nepal for attending the 4th Bimstec summit.

The press conference started at 4:04pm.

The Prime Minister visited Nepal on August 30 and 31 to attend the two-day summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec).