He made the remark after paying courtesy calls on IMF’s South Asian Regional Vice-President, World Bank’s Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Bhutan’s Executive Director Aparna Subramani, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and IMF’s Deputy Managing Director Mitsuhiro Furusawa as part of the World Bank and IMF’s annual meeting.
Kamal said there had been several global recessions in the last two decades. Many Asian countries, including South Korea and Indonesia, suffered during the 1997 crisis.
He said countries, including the USA, suffered during the crisis in 2008. “Even then, our economy didn’t face any debacle,” he said, according to a PID handout.
The minister said the world economy is facing a downward trend due to the so-called trade war. “For this, China’s growth went down to 7 percent from 14.4 percent. However, Bangladesh’s economy is moving forward and the country’s growth rate is increasing. This is reality,” he said.
Kamal said the World Bank and IMF have lauded Bangladesh’s economic progress.
Referring to the IMF outlook, he said they predicted a 7.8 percent growth for Bangladesh, the highest in IMF’s history.
“Bangladesh is one of the best countries in terms of achieving growth … Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is the architect of the country’s overall progress,” he said.