7th Five-Year Plan
Govt needs to give priority to infrastructure: businesses
Business leaders on Wednesday demanded that the government should give top priority to improving infrastructure, creating IT-skilled manpower, reducing bank interest rate and diversifying export products and markets in the coming 7th Five-Year Plan.
At a view-exchange meeting with the Planning Commission on the plan, they also stressed on creating employment opportunities in the rural areas for reducing income inequality.
At the meeting, General Economics Division of the Planning Commission said that providing higher income employment opportunities to the expanding labour force would be the leading challenge for the plan.
GED in a paper presented at the meeting said that transforming the country’s existing production towards manufacturing and industrialisation along with rapid expansion of the services sector would remain the core objective of the plan to ensure necessary job creation.
‘The government should give importance on diversification of export products as well as markets along with readymade garments to increase export earnings,’ the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry director Obaidur Rahman said.
Bank interest rate should be brought down to single digit, otherwise new investment will not be possible with bank loans at 16 per cent to 17 per cent interest rate, he said.
Bangladesh Finished Leather, Leather Goods and Footwear Exporters’ Association chairman Abu Taher said that achieving economic growth at higher rate would not be possible without improved infrastructure facilities.
He said that the government would have to assist leather and footwear sector to grab a significant portion of US$ 200 billion international market.
Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services joint secretary general Mostafizur Rahman Sohel said that the government would have to create at least 10 lakh skilled manpower for IT sector by 2018 along with expansion of broadband internet facility up to villages to increase higher level income from the IT enable services.
Bangladesh Cargo Vessels Owners’ Association vice-president Khorshed Alam said that a deep sea port and a harbour must be built within the 7th Five-Year Plan timeframe.
Bangladesh Handicrafts Manufacturers and Exporters Association president SU Haider said building some craft villages across the country would be helpful to generate employment opportunities for village women that would also reduce income inequality.
Planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said that the plan would be a pro-growth, pro-investment and pro-employment document so that businessmen can make new investment in the country.
He said that the spread should not be more than 3 per cent and interest rate must come down to single digit as it was impossible to do business taking bank loans with 16 per cent interest rate.
Planning commission officials said that the first draft of the plan would be finalised by next February and then they would conduct national consultations with stakeholders on the draft in April and May to finalise it.
The plan will come into effect from next July as the ongoing 6th Five-Year Plan is set to end in June, they said.
The government has set the theme of the plan as ‘accelerating growth and empowering every citizen’.
State minister for finance and planning MA Mannan, GED member Shamsul Alam, planning secretary Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam, planning commission member Arastoo Khan, representatives from different business associations, among others, attended the meeting.
-With New Age input
