Bangladesh making 20-year plan to achieve 'developed status' by 2041, Hasina says

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said the government is making a 20-year plan to make Bangladesh a developed nation by 2041.

Addressing a gathering of expatriates in Australia’s Sydney on Saturday, she hoped the Awami League would remain in power to see the plan implemented.

“Bangladesh will become a developed, prosperous country by 2041. And we’ve started working on the plan on how we want to see Bangladesh developing from 2021 to 2041,” Hasina said.

Australia Awami League organised the reception for Hasina at a city hotel.

“There is no doubt Bangladesh will become a middle-income country by 2021. The country will become a developed one by 2041,” she said.

The Awami League pledged to make Bangladesh a developing nation by 2021 in its electoral manifesto for the ninth parliamentary polls in 2008. Bangladesh already achieved the eligibility to become a developing nation, according to the UN.

After winning the 2014 elections, the Awami League announced it was planning for Bangladesh to achieve the 'developed nation status' by 2041.

Hasina said on Saturday she read between the lines the draft of the plan in this regard.

She said she discussed it even before leaving Dhaka for Sydney on Thursday.

“We will be financially independent and keep our heads high,” she added.

The prime minister noted that her government was implementing five-yearly plans. “But the BNP’s plans were ad hoc basis,” she said.

Noting that the government was implementing the Seventh Five Year Plan FY2016 – FY2020, she said, “The country is heading forward for taking these longterm plans.”

She emphasised continuation of a government in power to implement these long-term plans.

“The flow of development we’ve created must continue. Never let war criminals, killers, those who awarded the killers of the Father of the Nation, and anti-liberation forces grab the power,” she said.

Hasina said Bangladesh would have achieved the developed nation status within 10 years from independence if her father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was not assassinated in 1975.

She also criticised her political rivals. Without naming anyone, she said, “Those who grabbed power illegally at that time they used it for personal luxury.”