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Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal yesterday refused to accept data on the new poor released earlier through surveys conducted by private research organisations to measure the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic-induced income losses. "We need to know first who is on this list and how they collected the number of poor," he told journalists after a meeting of the cabinet committee
Kamal rejects new poor data by private research organisations
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal
Star Business Report
Star Business Report
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today rejected to accept the data on new poor that came out earlier through surveys done by private research organisations to measure the effect of Covid-induced income loss.
Over the last one year, Brac Institute for Governance and Development and Power and Participation Research Centre, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) and South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) found in their surveys that poverty rates rose to 35 per cent to 43 per cent as many lost income opportunities in the wake of countrywide shutdown and resultant economic slowdown.
Kamal hopeful of 6.1pc growth in FY21
Staff Correspondent
File Photo
Refuting a subdued growth forecast of the World Bank (WB), Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday insisted that Bangladesh GDP growth will be more than 6.1 per cent in the outgoing FY21, the highest in South Asia.
“We’ve to see first whether World Bank’s predictions were correct in the past. We’ve not seen any similarity of those forecasts with reality even after some plus and minus,” the finance minister said after a Cabinet Committee meeting.
Kamal’s comments came a day after the global lender made a new forecast on Bangladesh economy that its growth will slum to 3.6 per cent in outgoing FY21.
Only 2 per cent of garment workers had received the Covid-19 vaccine in Bangladesh until April this year, according to a study. The South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) and Microfinance Opportunities (MFO) revealed the study as part of their joint project titled "Garment Worker Diaries" in which SANEM and MFO have been collecting monthly data since April 2020. The