Sufferings of financially vulnerable people increased

Staff Reporter :
The sufferings of the financially vulnerable people have increased in the country due to inflationary pressure, said former caretaker government adviser Dr Hossain Zillur Rahman.
He further said that an adjective (real) should be used in economic discussion as everyone has different views and interpretations of the country’s economics.
“When, we talk about the banking sector or the poverty. It is now very important to paint the real picture,” Zillur Rahman said while speaking at a publication ceremony of ‘Banking Almanac’ a book based on information of banks and financial institutions at the Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in the capital on Saturday.
Citing partial explanation or description is a problemme, he said, “We cannot get the whole picture from a partial view. While driving from Chittagong, I saw many people lying on the pavement. Even in this winter, the number of people sleeping on the pavements has gone up.”
“The increase in number of people sheltering on the pavements shows that the plight of the poor has increased in the country,” he said.
“One reason for this is of course economic pressure. Inflation has increased, cost of living has increased. There is also the shock of Covid-19 pandemic. It is the real information,” he said.
He further said, “Information dilemma and outage are both realities in Bangladesh. We are in an outage problemme. Among these, Banking Almanac is a very good initiative. There is no fabricated information here.”
Former Bangladesh Bank governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said, “Major challenges in the present world are growth and inflation. Money supply should be increased to increase growth.”
“Again, increasing the money supply will swell inflation. On the other hand, if money supply is reduced, small businesses will be in danger. Initiatives should be taken to solve this problemme,” he said.
“We need to increase the capacity of our institutions. And to do that, transparency should be increased. We have a lot of special powers here. But all must be within the law. Besides, we need to increase good governance,” the economist said.
He also opined that in order to restore ‘good governance’ in the banking sector, there is a need to take proper decisions and thus implement those visibly in a speedy manner.
Planning Minister MA Mannan hoped that Bangladesh would be able to tackle situation arising from the current global economic condition without incurring any big loss.
“The global economic shock has also affected Bangladesh while bigger economies have also fallen into crisis. Being a comparatively smaller economy, Bangladesh has been trying to keep its momentum braving the adverse global condition. Hopefully we’ll be able to tackle the situation without any big loss,” he said.
Former chairman of Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB) Nurul Amin, former managing director of Bangladesh Shilpa Bank Amanullah, former chairman of Bangladesh Leasing and Finance Companies Association (BLFC) M Khalilur Rahman and executive editor of ‘Banking Almanac’ Syed Ziauddin Ahmed and its project director Abdar Rahman, among others, spoke on the occasion.