Bangladesh has become role model for developing countries: envoy

KARACHI: Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh at Karachi Mr. Mahbub ul Alam has said that Bangladesh had become a role model for the developing countries.

Mahbub ul Alam said this in his address under the auspices of Quaid e Azam House Museum (QAHM), Institute of Nation Building to the members of Board of Governors Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR).

He said that Bangladesh’s progress had been recognised by the United Nations for Bangladesh’s development had been termed as a “remarkable success story”. He added that 100 Specialised Economic Zones had been set up and achieved as Millennium Development Goals. He said that 2021 marked a very significant year for Bangladesh as they celebrated their 50th anniversary of independence.

“According to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, Bangladesh is one of the three countries of the world that has achieved the highest economic growth until 2021,” he apprised.

The envoy said from nearly no foreign reserves the country’s foreign exchange reserves currently stood at US$47 billion. He said Bangladesh was utilising its manpower and became a middle-income country with a per-capita GDP of US$2,554; which was growing further and fast and the life expectancy had risen to 73 years.

Read more: Bangladesh govt decides to close shop, markets at 8 pm

He said that an International Prize for the Creative Economy had been set up at UNESCO as Banglabandhu prize. He said that Bangladeshis were working all around the world at prestigious positions and that remittance earnings from expatriates working abroad had reached a record US$21 billion in 2021.

“After attaining Vision 2021 now they are working on Vision 2041, wherein Bangladesh will join the list of developed countries. They had worked upon ‘One House one Farm Project’ called Asrayan Project, meaning shelter for all,” he said.

The deputy high commissioner said Bangladesh’s economy was improving at the rate of 5.47 per cent in the preceding years and now was producing 25000MW of electricity bringing its 100 per cent population under electricity coverage. “It provides free textbooks, which number 400 million copies each year. The current enrolment rate in primary school is 98 per cent and the number of universities in Bangladesh has risen to 170. Bangladesh now has 300 state-of-the-art pharmaceutical companies which meet 97 per cent of the domestic needs and export to 70 countries across the world,” he said.

Bangladesh had become the second highest troop provider to UN peacekeeping missions in the world, he maintained. He requested the Pakistani investors to come forward with more investment and higher trade with Bangladesh. He assured all possible support for the potential businesspersons and investors for wider economic relationships between Bangladesh and Pakistan as the government embarked on higher growth trajectories and policies for NGOs and SMEs making its population, including women, self-reliant.

“Bangladesh has launched the Banglabandhu Satellite-1 to join the prestigious club of space countries,” he added.

The Chairman KCFR, Mr. Ikram Sehgal, praised Bangladesh for its remarkable progress, which had defied Henry Kissinger’s calling the country a ‘bottomless basket’. He praised construction of the Padma bridge project without any external financial assistance and proposed that Pakistan and Bangladesh should increase exports to each other.

He said Pakistan imported tea from Bangladesh and spent almost $600 million on tea imports. He also raised the issue of stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh and said that the issue should be settled once and for all.

He urged that they should be given the right of citizenship as Pakistan had always been welcoming refugees into Pakistan as a very large number of Afghans had come and settled in large cities of Pakistan. He hoped that tariffs in the trade of both sides shall be removed and soon movements shall take place on visa free entries into each brotherly country.

For the latest BOL Live News, Follow on Google News. Read more on Latest Pakistan News on oldsite.bolnews.com