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PM-ADDRESS-NATION-2
Sheikh Hasina outlined her government’s policies and strategies to negate the pandemic impact on Bangladesh economy particularly keeping in mind the issues of poorer people.
“We have so far announced stimulus packages of Taka 1.21 lakh crore which is equivalent to 4.3 percent of the total GDP. We are still continuing the process considering the situation,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said during the crisis the social safety net was widened to bring around 2.5 crore grassroots people under financial and other assistance programmes.
The premier said the pandemic forced closure of educational institutions in Bangladesh as elsewhere in the globe but students continued to attend classes on virtual media.
She said the schools and other educational institutions would be reopened as soon as the normalcy returned.
The premier said her government continued to make all efforts to resolve another crisis involving the Rohingyas of Myanmar to send peacefully all the 1.1 million of them back to their homeland, from where they were forcibly displaced.
“I call upon the international community to take more effective measures to repatriate Rohingyas to their own country,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said her government built improved and well designed infrastructures in Bhasanchar to accommodate one lakh Rohingyas there.
But, she said, only those who voluntarily expressed their desire to be moved to the island were being relocated there from their current crammed makeshift abodes in Cox’s Bazar.
The Prime Minister said her government has been working to establish peace in the world following the foreign policy “friendship to all, malice to none” adopted by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
She noted with happiness that Bangladesh at this moment has secured the number one position in terms of peacekeepers number in the United Nations blue helmet missions in troubled parts of the globe.
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