Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The hard working people of Bangladesh including small and medium entrepreneurs are playing a strategic role in keeping the country’s economic growth consistent, Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman has said.
“The Bangladesh story is still to be told. This is an amazing story where hard working people including small and medium entrepreneurs are playing a strategic role in keeping the economic growth consistent which remains stable,” BB Governor Dr Rahman said.
The chief of the Bangladesh Bank expressed his view while addressing a conference at University of California in the USA on November 7, said a message of Dr Atiur received in Dhaka on Sunday.
Besides maintaining macroeconomic and financial stability, the central bank of Bangladesh has also been supporting rapid broad based inclusive economic growth through its multipronged financial inclusion initiatives, he explained.
“The BB’s engagement to inclusivity and sustainability is direct and explicitly pronounced in its monetary policy statements,” Dr. Rahman said in his key note speech at the conference titled “Bangladesh Development Initiative (DBI) Conference 2015”.
He also said the motivational thrust of ingraining a socially responsible financing ethos has sensitised the financial sector in reaching out to the underserved and excluded population segments with the financial services they need.
“The thrusts are on output initiatives in agriculture supporting food security and price stability; SME financing promoting output, employment and income generation; green financing supporting environmental sustainability; and digital inclusion facilitating the ‘Digital Bangladesh’ vision of the government,” Dr. Rahman noted.
He also said: “Now, our goal is to deepen, widen, and further improve the quality of inclusive financing programs to ensure environmentally sustainable economic development.”
All the government organs with the lead role of the private sector need to work hard to pace up our inclusive socioeconomic growth and development momentum towards attaining higher middle income country status by 2030 and advanced economy status by the decade of forties, Dr. Rahman observed.
In another panel discussion on monetary policy, the central bank chief said the BB’s monetary policy is both participatory and inclusive.
“This is leading to monetary policy touching the real economy and improving the living standards of the unserved, unbanked and underserved segments of population.”
He also said funds are now flowing to smaller borrowers and yet risks are managed prudently.
“What we are doing is the call of the time. We are helping the farmers by extending agricultural loans aiming to maintain crop sufficiency for the nation once starved for food.”
“We are giving credit to female entrepreneurs to embolden women empowerment so that Bangladesh becomes a balanced county with the participation of female labour. Women must get a bigger strength in decision making of their lives and livelihood,” he said.
“We extend loans to green projects and solar plants to vindicate our responsibility for the environment.  Any injustice to the environment will make the imperative of sustainable growth simply impossible.  We support exporters to build a trade resilient economy,” the BB Governor explained.
Later on the day, Governor Dr. Rahman paid tribute to Professor Nurul Islam for his life-time achievement of recognition of his high level intellectual contribution in the field of economics.
BBN/SS/ANS