Bangladesh plans to spend 1,959.52 billion taka ($42.5 billion) over five years to ease poverty, boost self-sufficiency in food production and create jobs, planning ministry officials said on Thursday.
They said the National Economic Council (NEC), led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on Wednesday approved the countrys fifth five-year plan (1997-2002), targeting an annual economic growth of seven percent.
We all must work hard for achieving the seven percent growth to free the country from poverty, hunger and illiteracy, the officials quoted Sheikh Hasina as saying at the NEC meeting.
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56 per cent of the money would be placed with state-owned development financial institutions to offer credit to private investors.
The rest would be spent by the government mainly to develop infrastructure in the country of 124 million people, they said.
The plan sought to raise investment spending in agriculture by five percent, 14 percent for the industrial sector and by 23 percent for the energy sector, they said.
Officials said 78 percent of the money would come from internal resources such as savings and by imposing taxes. The rest would come from foreign investment and aid.
Foreign donors including Western nations, Japan, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank offer Bangladesh nearly $2.0 billion a year to finance the countrys development.