What World Bank MD Anna Bjerde discussed during her Bangladesh visit
She was accompanied by the World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region Martin Raiser during her visit.
The World Bank Managing Director (Operations) Anna Bjerde concluded her first official visit to Dhaka yesterday (25 February).
During her visit she met the prime minister, the finance minister, Bangladesh Bank governor, senior government officials, private sector and civil society leaders and women entrepreneurs to discuss Bangladesh's development priorities.
She was accompanied by the World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region, Martin Raiser.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Aside from discussing a financing programme of over $650 million for two new projects to address the needs of both the displaced Rohingya population and the host communities in the Chattogram division, the World Bank MD also discussed a number of issues.
Here's what was discussed:
Anna Bjerde paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Jatiya Sangsad (JS) yesterday, following which the prime minister said Bangladesh has sought special fund from the World Bank (WB) to create more women entrepreneurs for their socio-economic advancement and more loans at concessionary rates to implement climate-related projects.
"We have been working for empowering women as our topmost priority. Equal opportunities have been ensured for both men and women. So, there is no gender disparity in Bangladesh," she said.
Sheikh Hasina said women now have been working in every sector stretching from agriculture to armed forces, police and judiciary.
Anna Bjerde said, "Bangladesh will get new funds as soon as the World Bank funded projects will be implemented."
She stressed the need for quick implementation of the World Bank funded projects.
She also emphasised the reforms of the macro and micro economy of Bangladesh.
'Bangladesh soon to come out of difficult patch'
The World Bank MD also met Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali the same day, and said Bangladesh would be able to come out of the difficult patch owing to ongoing global economic situation.
"I should say that we are very confident that Bangladesh would come out of this difficult patch especially given that Bangladesh has a very successful track record in reducing poverty and in implementing projects that have helped the population at large," she said.
"We talked about the most important measures in order to address inflation and we can support that through a number of instruments that we have and we're looking forward to going forward to finalising some of our assessments together in supporting these reforms," she said.
She went on saying, "Other reforms that we talked about are very important in the financial sector and we talked about making sure a strong social protection and a strong social safety net in place with some of these reforms to adjust economic parameters to protect the people who might be the most affected. Overall there was a very good discussion."
Also, Finance Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali said Anna Bjerde expressed interest to meet BNP leaders, which he discouraged.
"As background, I told her [Bjerde] that they [World Bank] want to meet those [BNP] who do not want to participate in the democratic process," Mahmood Ali said while talking to reporters after the meeting which lasted more than an hour from 9:40am to 11am on 25 February at his office in the ERD building in Agargaon.
The meeting, was attended by Finance Secretary Khairuzzaman Mozumder, ERD Secretary Md Shahriar Kader Siddiky, World Bank Vice President for South Asia Martin Raiser, and senior officials from the World Bank's Dhaka office.
