Poverty rate decreases to 18.7pc in Bangladesh: BBS

The poverty rate in the country came down at 18.7 per cent at the national level, which is 20.5 per cent in the rural areas and 14.7 per cent in the urban areas, according to the key findings of the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022.

The survey findings also showed that the overall rate of extreme poverty in the country is 5.6 per cent, which is 6.5 per cent in the rural areas and 3.8 per cent in the urban areas.

The poverty rate in the country in 2016 was 24.3 per cent while the extreme poverty rate was 12.9 per cent.

The findings of the latest HIES 2022, conducted during the period of 1 January to 31 December last year, was revealed Wednesday at a function held at the auditorium of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) at Agargaon in the capital.

Planning minister MA Mannan spoke at the function as the chief guest while state minister for planning Shamsul Alam, statistics and informatics division secretary Shahnaz Arefin, general economics division (GED) member of the planning commission Md Kawser Ahmed, World Bank representative Ximena V Del Carpio, practice manager, poverty and equity GP, World Bank spoke as special guests.

Director general of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Md Matiar Rahman chaired the function while director of the national accounting wing of BBS Ziauddin Ahmed gave the address of welcome. Project director of the HIES 2022 Mohiuddin Ahmed, made a power-point presentation on the key findings of the survey.

The survey findings showed that the daily intake of calories in the country increased over the years as it has reached 2,393 kilocalorie in 2022 which was 2210.4 kilocalorie in 2016 while it was 2,318.3 kilocalorie in 2010.

It said the income Gini coefficient is 0.499 in 2022, compared to 0.482 in 2016 and 0.458 in 2010. On the other hand, the consumption Gini coefficient is 0.334 in 2022, 0.324 in 2016 and 0.321 in 2010. It shows that the concentration of income is slightly increasing.