World Bank asks B'desh to develop more special zones

from Yahoo News India

By Serajul Islam Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) - The World Bank has asked Bangladesh to develop more special industrial zones in order to achieve the millennium development goal to halve the poverty level by the end of 2015, a senior official said on Sunday.

The government should focus further on developing more special economic zones to create jobs, the official quoted World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who arrived Dhaka on Saturday for a two-day visit, as saying.

After having met Mirza Azizul Islam, finance adviser to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, on Saturday, Zoellick visited the Dhaka export processing zone (EPZ) at Savar, near the capital, on Sunday.

Zoellick was accompanied by Praful C. Patel, the World Bank Vice President for South Asia, and Xian Zhu, the bank's Bangladesh country director.

"He seemed impressed over the contribution of the zones (to the country's economy) and agreed that economic activities at the EPZs have an important impact on the poverty reduction initiatives of the government," said Brigadier-General Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf, executive chairman of the state-run Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority.

About half of Bangladesh's more than 140 million people still live below the poverty line, or less than a U.S. dollar a day, officials said.

Yussuf informed the team that the country's eight EPZs were contributing 18 percent to the national export earnings and offering employing more than 200,000 people.

Presently about 270 enterprises are operating in the zones making an investment of $1.8 billion.

The World Bank president visited the South Korea-based Youngone at the Dhaka EPZ, the biggest textile firm in Bangladesh.

So far Youngone has invested more than $300 million in Bangladesh's Dhaka and Chittagong export zones, and created 34,000 jobs.

Clothing is Bangladesh's biggest export, generating three-quarters of country's annual export income.

BANK APPROACH CRITICISED

But Professor Mohammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel peace prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, Bangladesh's biggest micro-credit institution, criticised the role of the World Bank for its efforts in addressing poverty across the world.

"The World Bank has failed to eradicate poverty, which was its one of the prime objectives during formation of the agency 60 years ago," Yunus told reporters after a meeting with Zoellick in Dhaka.

"It (World Bank) has to change its principles and policies in a large scale if it wants to seriously help to eliminate poverty from the world," said Yunus.

"Instead of focusing only on infrastructure development, the focus should also be on human aspects," he said.

"Conditions attached by the World Bank to its lending often puzzle many countries. It lends $20 billion a year on average, but less than 1 percent is given for microcredit and small entrepreneurs, which should be at least 5 percent."

At a meeting with the head of interim government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, Zoellick lauded the ongoing reform programme of the present government.

He said that the Bank was ready to assist Bangladesh to become a middle income country by the end of 2015.

The World Bank is preparing to assist Bangladesh to address the looming challenge of adapting to climate change and to help country's citizens, especially the poorest, develop the skills they need to engage more competitively in the global marketplace, Zoellick said.

"Bangladesh has made significant economic and social gains since the 1990s," said Zoellick said in a statement issued at the end of his visit.

"Its human development achievements have been remarkable in reaching a number of the Millennium Development Goals. But as it faces the future, Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on the one hand and is challenged to develop a competitive workforce on the other."

Zoellick also noted the importance of efforts by the current caretaker government to address persistent corruption.