Poverty rate went down to 20.5 percent in 2018-19 from 21.8 percent in the previous fiscal year, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Extreme poverty rate declined to 10.5 percent in 2018-19. It was 11.3 percent in the previous fiscal.
“We’ve been able to cut poverty after the Liberation War. Now, one out of five people is poor. It’ll be one out of ten within the next five or seven years,” Mannan told a dialogue on ‘Modernisation of the system and capacity of governance: A Chinese Experience’, organised by Bangladesh-China Silk Road Forum at a city hotel.
Former Bangladesh ambassador to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad read out the keynote paper. Li Jiming, the Chinese Ambassador to Dhaka, was present as special guest.
Mannan said huge disparity exists between cities and villages. “The government has taken many projects to develop villages. Our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also set a slogan ‘villages will be turn into towns’,” he said.
The minister said China is associated with many development projects in Bangladesh, including the Padma Bridge.
“We will build more bridges like Padma Bridge. China economically flourished through infrastructural development. We’re walking the same path,” he added.
BNP Standing Committee Member Dr Abdul Moyeen Khan, Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Ministry Hasanul Haq Inu, General Secretary of Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) Dilip Barua, noted writer and columnist Syed Abul Maksud and former director general of Bangladesh Accreditation Board Md Abu Abdullah, among others, were present.