World Bank senior vice-president and chief economist Kaushik Basu on Monday said the Bangladesh’s private sector should be strengthened more to promote lifestyle of the people. Food and ration is the basic right of the people and the government has to fulfil it, but the supply system of food should be handed over to the private sector, he said while speaking at an international workshop on ‘macroeconomic stability, private sector development and economic growth’ at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital Dhaka. The two-day long workshop is being organised by Bangladesh Bank and United Nations Development of Economic and Social Affairs. Kaushik said the government should not provide and deliver food for free to control price inflation. The authorities should give cash to the people instead of supplying food with free of cost as the people want to make business and profit, he said. The private sector will play a role in delivering or supplying food to the people, the WB’s chief economist said. The authorities should take initiative to bring the people under financial sector by speeding up financial inclusion, he said. He said that the private banks should keep an important contribution to ensure the macroeconomic stability. The banks will also have to play a pivotal job to strengthen the financial inclusion which will increase the capability of the people, Kaushik said. Bangladesh, however, has done a lot to increase the volume of financial inclusion, he pointed out. Kaushik said, ‘The Bangladesh economy is now running in full-swing. The country has a rapid growth than that of other small countries, so I am very optimistic about it (Bangladesh economy).’ The WB has recently adopted a new track to facilitate the marginalised people by ensuring the inclusive growth, he said. ‘We hope to open a new window between Bangladesh and the World Bank to ensure prosperity of the people’, Kaushik said. You can make policy, but the policy should be prepared with passion and professionalism, he said. Between 1999 and 2008, the countries under European Union borrowed at a same cost as they are under a common monetary union, Kaushik said. ‘But, they mistook and paid huge cost. The EU countries’ debt is now bigger than that of the emerging countries’ borrowing figure’, he said. Despite being part of a common monetary union, Germany does not take the responsibility of the debt-burdened Greece or Cyprus, Kaushik said. The EU failed to indicate the collective risk of its countries that created the financial crisis, he said. Hamid Rashid, chief of UNDESA’s global economic monitoring unit under development policy and analysis division, said his organisation does not provide any loan to a country or an agency, but it provides support to make proper policy to achieve sustainable development of any country. The UNDESA is now working on sustainable development strategy, he said. ‘We signed a memorandum of understanding with the BB in 2011. We are now providing policy support to the central bank to improve its human resource’, Hamid said. BB governor Atiur Rahman said that the performance of Bangladesh economy was now grounded on very inclusive and broad-based nature of growth. The goal is now to deepen, widen, and further improve the quality of inclusive financing programmes to ensure environmentally sustainable economic development, he said. All the government organs with the lead role of the private sector need to work hard to accelerate the inclusive socioeconomic growth and development momentum, the BB governor said. ‘We also need to put more attention towards long-term mobilisation of savings, and quick completion of the infrastructure projects’, Atiur said.
