Bangladesh’s five-year plan aims to create more than 1.19 crore new jobs in the next five years to make good the economic losses incurred from the Covid-19 pandemic, General Economics Division (GED) sources said.
Of this, 84.20 lakh jobs have been created in the country and 35 lakh abroad, they mentioned.
In order to create jobs, the government wants to attract foreign investments especially in the special economic zones through a business-friendly environment creating a win-win situation for all, an official of GED said.
Besides, the government will train up workers into skilled hands and diversify labour markets to ensure huge employment, he added.
The draft of the Eighth Five-Year Plan has been finalised focusing on increased GDP growth, investment, savings and revenue collection to ensure sustainable growth, a senior official of the planning commission said.
The draft will be presented to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina soon, he added.
In the plan, the GDP growth rate in the country will be 8.51 percent in 2025. Although it has declined in 2019-20 and 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 situation, the target has been set on the assumption that the economy will turn around again from 2021-22, he mentioned.
The official said employment is at the heart of this estimate of GDP growth.
In this context, Dr Shamsul Alam, member (senior secretary), general economics division, Ministry of Planning, said the coronavirus pandemic would not have much impact on growth.
“It is expected that this situation will return to normal within the next one year. Afterwards, the economy will begin to accelerate. As a result, achieving this goal will not be difficult. That is why, the growth projected in the five-year plan is quite reasonable,” he mentioned
He is also hopeful that the plan will meet the employment estimates.
These jobs, however, will not be created overnight, he said adding that this will be created over the span of five years.
Here, as in the interior of the country, the issue of the expatriates has also been kept in mind, he mentioned.
Moreover, this target is not uncommon compared to that in the Seventh Five-Year Plan, Alam added.
According to the draft plan, without Corona, the target for GDP growth in the current fiscal year 2020-21 would have been 8.23 percent, but now it has been reduced to 6.50 percent.
However, as the situation is expected to improve in the coming days, the growth target for FY 2021-22 has been set at 8.29 percent.
The target for the fiscal year 2022-23 is 8.32 percent. GDP growth is expected to be 8.37 percent in FY 2023-24 and 8.51 percent in FY 2024-25.
According to the draft, Corona has had a huge negative impact on the lives and resources of the people of the country.
Under the circumstances, a plan has been made to restore the confidence of the people by giving the utmost importance to the protection of human health.
The Eighth Five-Year Plan, therefore calls for increasing allocations to the healthcare sector, strengthening public-private partnership, ensuring quality and necessary healthcare at the district level, and launching universal health care services.
Besides, with the help of the World Health Organization, vaccines should be collected and made accessible to all.
At the same time, financial incentives need to be given to domestic organizations that are doing research on vaccines.
It has already been asked to expedite the implementation of incentive and assistance packages announced by the government.
Strong implementation of social security programmes and poverty reduction programmes will be added.