Noting that the government is in the right path to eradicating poverty as it already in a war against hunger and poverty, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal hoped that there would be a significant improvement in reducing the poverty rate in Bangladesh in the next 2 to 3 years.

“Our extreme poverty rate is less than 10%. But, the rate in the upper poverty line is hovering around 19-20%. It has to be taken care of,” he said.

The Finance Minister said this while addressing the launching ceremony of the World Bank report titled ‘Bangladesh Poverty Assessment: Facing Old and New Frontiers in Poverty Reduction’ as the chief guest held at a city hotel on Monday (Oct 7).

Kamal said the government in this year increased the coverage of the social safety net programmes and targeting specific groups and classes of people so that they could come out of poverty.

He also noted that there is no reason even a single person would go back to the poverty line again while the GDP growth rate would not reduce as because of the working-age population and the demographic dividend which the country would continue to enjoy.

Chaired by World Bank Country Director Mercy Tembon, General Economics Division(GED) Member of the Planning Commission Dr Shamsul Alam, Additional Secretary to the Statistics and Informatics Division Kishore Kumar Das and Global Director, Poverty and Equality of Global Practice of World Bank Carolina Sanchez Paramo spoke as special guests. Senior Economist of the World Bank Maria Genoni made a power-point presentation on poverty assessment.

The World Bank report said Bangladesh has progressed significantly in reducing poverty and improving living conditions, mostly driven by labour income. In between 2010-2016, about 8 million Bangladeshis made exit from poverty.