PM Hasina says Bangladesh is aiming high on growth

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says she has revised her growth target and wants Bangladesh to be a 'higher-middle income' country within three years.

“Bangladesh is a free and sovereign state. We will have to develop it like one. So everyone must work sincerely now that we have already attained lower-middle income status,” she said on Thursday.

She continued that Bangladesh never wants to remain in the ‘lower’ tier and is aiming ‘high’.

Her call comes only a day after World Bank released revised indices which showed Bangladesh has become a lower-middle income country with the Gross National Income per capita (GNI), joining those with annual incomes of $1,046 to $4,125.

According to data released by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on May 14, the per capita income in Bangladesh rose from $1,190 to $1,314.

The figure emerged from an analysis of data pertaining to the first nine months (July-March) of the 2014-15 financial year.

The revised figures show that the Hasina-led government had fulfilled their electoral pledge of attaining middle income status by 2021 with six years to go.

However, the prime minister is not complacent and wants to move to a higher pitch. “Bangladesh never wants to stay in the lower tier. It always wants to move higher. So we will do all that is needed to move higher.”

She was inaugurating expansion of the Cox’s Bazar Airport from a video conference in her office.

At the ceremony, Civil Aviation and Tourism Secretary Kurshed Alam said the upgrading will allow wide-bodied aircraft like Boeing 777 to land.

The prime minister said the length of the runway would be increased to 10,500 ft in future, if needed, for wider aircraft.

Hasina referred to Bangladesh’s unique wealth of 125-kilometre long unbroken sea beach and said, “Our aim is to attract local and international tourists.”

The government had a plan to develop Cox’s Bazar as a modern tourism destination.

Construction of Maheshkhali power plant, LNG terminal and Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar dual-gauge railway via Chittagong would be implemented soon as part of the plan, she said.

“I don’t know why the Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar rail line has not been implemented yet. We will make it happen.”

She hoped the Cox’s Bazar Airport would serve as a ‘hub’ between ‘the East and the West’ and told the authorities to offer refuelling facilities at the airport to lure in airlines.

The prime minister recalled the recent deal on road links with India, Bhutan and Nepal and hoped the arrangement would become operational within six months.

She spoke of plans to make a separate trade zone consisting of Myanmar, China, India, and Bangladesh.

“The social condition of the people of Cox’s Bazar will improve when all these are implemented.”

She shared her ‘special weakness’ for the district, having visited it with her father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, during her childhood days.

“It was our great misfortune that most of the time our father used to be in jail. Whenever he would be at home during the winter, he would take us to Cox’s Bazar,” she recalled.