United News of Bangladesh

Noted economist and Executive Chairman of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC)  Hossain Zillur Rahman on Sunday said the interim government has five major economic challenges to face in the coming days. These challenges are—turning education as a tool to create human resources, remove investment stagnation, youth employment, address poverty and equity and address corruption, he said. He said that without addressing these issues the country might not advance with desired speed. He also said that speed to address these issues is another critical challenge for the government. “We are moving ahead, no one is complaining about it, but the main issue is how fast we are moving ahead, speed is the matter here,” he said. He said this while addressing the CPD Budget Dialogue 2025: An analysis of the National Budget for FY 2025-26 at a city hotel. Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Distinguished Fellow Mustafizur Rahman chaired the programme where Executive Director of CPD Fahmida Khatun presented the keynote presentation. Hossain Zillur,  the former adviser to the caretaker government, said that at present the education of the country is not transforming humans in to human resources. “As a whole, we cannot prioritise the education sector, we cannot form an education commission,” he said. Regarding the stagnant investment scenario, he mentioned that only the Finance Adviser alone can not do anything about it. “We have to advance through whole of approach basis,” he added. Pointing to the culture of lodging wholesale cases, he said that this has put the entire business world in to an uncertainty. “We have put the society under a blanket of suspicion rather focusing on strictly those who need to be punished,” he said. Proposed budget 'traditional', lacking major reform approaches: Seminar He said that to remove the investment stagnation, the finance ministry is not the only actor. “It has to be a whole of government approach,” he added. The PPRC executive chairman said that the government should bring the youth employment in the focus. He said that there are 22 lakh youths adding in the job market each year. “We have to think about them, not only for this year, but also for the next years,” he said. He also said that there should be an effective strategy for this as the country needs a breakthrough. For addressing the poverty and equity issue, he said that the country must need for new growth challenge and it needs new growth drivers. The economist said that there is no doubt that the society has corrupt people, but it has also hard working and honest people and their number is higher in the society. He termed institutional inefficiency as part of the corruption as it initiate hassles for the people of the country.