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
Staff Correspondent | Published: 15:04, Jun 09,2021 | Updated: 15:33, Jun 09,2021
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on
Finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said he did not admit that around 2.4crore people had become new poor in Bangladesh due to Covid crisis.
Answering to a question on the country new poor after a meeting of the cabinet committee on government purchases, he wanted to know how the number was calculated.
Local think-tank Power and Participation Research Centre put the number of new poor at 2.45 crore while another think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue said that 1.6 crore people became new poor.
In its ‘Bangladesh Development Update-2021’ World Bank estimated the upper poverty rate would increase by 7 percentage points to 30 per cent due to the novel coronavirus spread.
Mahila Parishad demands inclusion of gender budget
Staff Correspondent | Published: 19:15, Jun 09,2021
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad on Wednesday expressed concern over dropping gender budget report in the proposed national budget for 2021-22.
They came up with the concern at a virtual press conference.
Jahangirnagar University professor, economist and central leader of Mahila Parishad Sormindo Nilormi, read out the keynote paper and said that the government had dropped placing gender budget from 2020 in the budget showing the cause of Covid pandemic.
‘Due to this, the developments of women would be,’ Sormindo said and demanded including a gender budget in the budget for the fiscal 2021-22.
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.
The government should ensure that stimulus funds for the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) are quickly disbursed in order to facilitate sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 fallouts, according to speakers at a webinar yesterday. The event, styled "Impact of Covid-19 on CMSMEs and Understanding their Recovery: Evidence from BSCIC Industrial Estates", was