Desk Report

Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed on Wednesday stressed the need for greater regional collaboration in poverty alleviation efforts to ensure better lives for people.

Inaugurating BIMSTEC's 2008 Dhaka conference on poverty alleviation, Fakhruddin said sharing poverty alleviation experiences among the member countries was paramount.
 
"Many regions of the world have achieved fruitful results in trade, industry, tourism, monetary cooperation, technology transfer, and ultimately better lives for the people through regional collaborations," the chief adviser said in his inaugural address at the Sonargaon Hotel.
 
"It is possible to have a far-reaching impact on poverty reduction and development through regional cooperation," he said.
 
"The Institutional framework of BIMSTEC member-countries may be devised for intensive and extensive research, investigation and ultimately development of programmes incorporating best practice examples," Fakhruddin said.
 
The 2004 Bangkok conference of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation decided that a special ministerial meeting of BIMSTEC would be held in Dhaka on poverty alleviation.
 
In his chairperson's address, finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam pointed out that the BIMSTEC region had the highest concentration of poor people in the world.
 
The adviser said global price hikes of essentials coupled with uncertainty of food availability were serious threats to those living below the poverty line.
 
Mirza Aziz hoped that the ministerial conference would thrash out some significant means of alleviating poverty in the region.
 
Foreign affairs adviser Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury also spoke at the opening function.
 
BIMSTEC comprises seven member countries of the South Asia and South East Asian regions:—Bangladesh, Bhutan India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
 
The regional grouping represents 1.4 billion or 20 percent of the world population. The combined GDP of BIMSTEC countries is US $750 billion.
 
Bhutan's finance minister Lyonpo Wangdi Norbu, India's state minister for rural development Chandra Sekhar Sahu, Myanmar's deputy minister for national planning and economic development Col Thuyain Zaw, Nepal's national planning commission member Dr Posh Raj Pandey, Sri Lanka's minister for nation building and state infrastructure development Slinda Dissanayake and Thailand's social development and human security minister Chavarat Charnvirat were among those attending the ministerial conference.

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