Bangladeshi female workforce will contribute additional 1.8 per cent to the country’s GDP in the coming decade if their participation continues at the same pace, said World Bank president Jim Yong Kim on Friday. ‘Countries such as Bangladesh are encouraging female participation in the workforce. If they stay on track, their female workforce will grow from 34 to 82 per cent over the next decade, adding 1.8 per cent to their GDP,’ he said while speaking in the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Peru. ‘Countries should invest in women, which can be one of the most effective pro-growth strategies by any government,’ he added. Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith is leading a 12-member team to represent Bangladesh in the meeting. The WB boss’s comment came following the release of a report ‘Women, Business and the Law 2016’ by the organisation on the same day. The report, which is published in every two years, examines laws that impede women employment and entrepreneurship in 173 economies throughout the world. The 2016 edition expands coverage in South Asia from five to eight economies, adding Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives. There are 7.83 lakh female population in Bangladesh of which 60 per cent are active in workforce, said the report. Gender discrimination in women entrepreneurship and labour force participation accounts for estimated income losses of 27 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa, 19 per cent in South Asia, 14 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean and 10 per cent in Europe, according to the report.
