To showcase Bangladesh’s graduation to lower middle-income status, the government will arrange special publicity programmes at home and abroad before and during the UN General Assembly in September.
On Thursday, Md Nurul Islam, director of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), wrote to the secretaries of the Finance and Economic Relations divisions, and Planning and Foreign ministries to take necessary measures. A letter was also sent to the officials of the Access to Information (A2i) project, based in the PMO.
According to that letter, the government will hold a festival around Bangladesh in September, highlighting the last 40 years’ economic and social achievements.
The Foreign Ministry will arrange special publicity outside the United Nations premises in New York, USA when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will be attending the General Assembly inside the UN headquarters.
The PMO will finalise the activities in a meeting on Thursday to be presided over by the PM’s Principal Secretary Abul Kalam Azad.
Finance Division officials said these programmes will be arranged to get international media coverage for Bangladesh’s graduation to the lower middle-income status.
“If needed, Tk5-10 crore funds will be provided from the budget, although the PMO has enough money to arrange such programmes,” one of the officials said.
However, AB Mirza Azizul Islam, adviser to a former caretaker government, sees this as a political move.
“Publicity in Now York during the UN General Assembly will not bring any fruits because the UN has it own ways for classifying a country as lower middle-income,” he said.
The UN’s parameters are per capita income, income vulnerability and human assets, but Bangladesh has only achieved the income vulnerability target in the World Bank’s assessment, he said.
Last week, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said that Bangladesh would have to wait three more years to get the same recognition from the UN. “Until then, we will have to do with the facilities that low-income countries get from the UN,” the minister said.
On July 1, the World Bank in a posting on its website said that it had revised the income classification of the world’s economies based on its Atlas Method calculations. Four countries – Bangladesh, Kenya, Myanmar and Tajikistan – graduated from low-income to the lower middle-income category.
According to data released by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics on May 14, per capita income of Bangladesh rose from $1,190 to $1,314.
