DHAKA, Jan 29, 2020 (BSS) – Noting that areas like micro finance and SMEs need more policy support and innovative interventions, Planning Minister MA Mannan today sought efforts from all including the development partners to make a self-reliant Bangladesh.
“Let us all move together in our very large quest for a self-reliant Bangladesh which will be built with our own resources and from outside …….we need to find out the resources to help grow our economy,” he said.
The Planning Minister said this while chairing a session of the Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) 2020 titled “Innovative Financing for a self-reliant Bangladesh” held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in the capital.
ERD Secretary Monowar Ahmed made the key-note presentation while former Secretary and chair of the Advisory Board of Build Bangladesh Arastoo Khan, Lead financial sector economist of the World Bank Group Ilias Skamnelos, Principal Financial sector specialist of ADB Dongdong Zhang and MCCI President Nihad Kabir spoke at the session.
Highlighting the prospects of innovative financing in various sectors like the SMEs, Mannan suggested that the operations of mobile banking and agent banking be pushed forward further to the rural level.
He also underscored the need for having innovative financing means apart from the traditional source of financing to turn Bangladesh into a self reliant country.
“The central message is self reliance as we want to stand on our own feet. Of course we need to learn from others, but the strong political message is self reliance. It’s also the core strategy of our Prime Minister,” he said.
In his presentation, the ERD Secretary showed that Bangladesh’s SDG Financing Strategy 2017 reveals that the country already has nearly $ 1 trillion gap in financing.
Since the traditional financing source is quite inadequate to match this gap, the speakers at the session discussed the issue how Bangladesh can innovate financing sources and mechanism through piloting new financing models.
They said the private sector can play a significant role to muster support for advancing towards the SDGs and contributing to smooth and sustainable LDC graduation.
The World Bank’s lead financial sector economist Ilias stressed the need for having a strong banking sector as well as giving due importance to SMEs.
He also underscored the need for finding ways to provide incentives to the private sector, address the issue of non-performing loans and have a very strong supervisory role on the banking sector which could really make a difference.
The World Bank official also suggested making a strong political commitment for building the capital market while innovative financial instruments are also needed to be developed.
MCCI President Nihad Kabir said the corporate sector of the country wants to tap the investment from large international institutions.
Noting that Bangladesh has a very good track record as it is paying back its debt prudently, the MCCI President also suggested floating collateral supported bond in the country which could be either project specific bond or on sectoral basis.
ADB’s Principal Financial Sector Specialist Dongdong advocated Inclusiveness of financing to touch more people in the rural areas like through agent banking and mobile financing.
Arastoo Khan said the country needs $928 billion additional funding for attaining the SDGs by 2030 including $85 billion additional funding every year and the development partners need to come up in a wider scale.