Hasina describes Bangladesh’s journey towards 'self-reliance' to London audience

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has described Bangladesh’s journey towards self-reliance after achieving independence at a programme in London.

She presented the keynote speech – ‘Bangladesh’s Development Story: Policies, Progresses and Prospects’ – at the programme organised by the UK’s Overseas Development Institute or ODI at Queen Elizabeth Centre on Tuesday.

She said her Awami League party charted a roadmap for future Bangladesh – ‘Vision 2021’ in its 2008 election manifesto.

“It foresees, among other things, that by 2021, the Golden Jubilee year of our independence, Bangladesh will become a middle-income country,” she said.

ODI is one of the UK's leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues.

Hasina said the government gave ‘special’ attention to the agricultural sector to make the country self-reliant in food production.

Her government also focused on mobilisation of domestic resources, Hasina said.

The prime minister said private sector had been opened up to boost investments and thereby create job opportunities.

Bangladesh undertook several fast-track projects with foreign investments, she said and added 100 Special Economic Zones were being set up across the country to attract FDI.

Hasina said Bangladesh was one of the fastest growing economies in the world with the optimistic outlook.

In the last fiscal year, the growth rate was 7.28 percent, and the projected growth in this financial year is 7.65 percent, the prime minister noted.

She said the GDP grew by 2.5 times to $250 billion in 2017 from $100 billion in 2009 when her government took charge.

She said expatriate Bangladeshis also contributed to the economy by remitting their income, boosting foreign currency reserve to over $33 billion.

Per capita income leapt from $543 in 2006 to $1,752 this year, she added.

She also noted Bangladesh was currently the second largest RMG exporter in the world.

“Initiatives have been taken to make our garments factories compliant with safety and security standards,” she said.

According to Hasina, 67 Bangladeshis RMG factories have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED certification. “Top seven environment-friendly garments and textiles factories of the world are in Bangladesh,” she said.

She described how Bangladesh was doing in the other sectors like pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, frozen food, leather products, IT services, jute, and toys.

The prime minister said Bangladesh’s annual export earnings increased three times to $34.67 billion since 2009.

With 136 million mobile phone users, including 73 million who use mobile data, Bangladesh is now a tech-friendly country which is now building 13 high-tech parks to boost billion-dollar ICT industry, she said.

Bangladesh is also set to launch its first satellite ‘Bangabandhu–I soon’, she noted.

Her government also realised the importance of energy and boosted power generation capacity from around 3,200 megawatts in 2009 five times to 16,600 megawatts she said and added the work to set up a 2,400MW nuclear power plant along with several other prominent power plants is underway.

The prime minister said Bangladesh was building the 6.15 km Padma Bridge with its own resources.

“We understand that investing in our vast human resources, particularly women and youth would pay rich dividends,” Hasina said.

She said nearly 20.3 million students, half of whom are girls, were brought under stipend and scholarship programmes.

Education of girls in public schools is free up to level 12.

Free textbooks are being distributed among students up to secondary level since 2010.

Some 362 million textbooks have been distributed this year alone, Hasina said.

She also said Bangladesh was in the process of developing Delta Plan 2100 to mitigate and manage the climate change impacts.

She said Bangladesh was following a ‘zero tolerance policy’ against terrorism and militancy to suppress the global threat.