Govt wants to delay graduation from LDC

Bangladesh is scheduled to graduate from the status of least developed country on 24 November 2026. However, the interim government is working on delaying it further.

However, it is not like that the government can defer the graduation if it wants. So the interim government will appeal to the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) of the United Nations in this regard.

Special assistant to the chief adviser Anisuzzaman Chowdhury said this during a briefing at the secretariat Tuesday. Before that, Anisuzzman met finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed at his office. He was appointed on Monday. He has been assigned at the finance ministry.

Anisuzzaman Chowdhury said the work on developing a complete outline for reconsidering Bangladesh’s graduation from LDC has begun.

A committee headed by chief adviser’s principal secretary M Siraj Uddin Mia has been formed in this regard. The ERD and FID secretaries are members of this committee.

Anisuzzaman Chowdhury said, “We are on the verge of graduating from LDC on the basis of false information. So we need to work on that. Our dependency on foreign countries has been surging since 2010. Local sources of income have declined. The tax-GDP rate has declined to less than 7 per cent. If we need to take more loans, then we will be in a crisis.”

Asked whether the indicators for graduation from LDC were fake or not, he said, “Let’s assume that everything was right. But what are our preparations? Some 85 per cent of the market facilities we get come from the readymade garment sector. We have to diversify our exports. We have been saying since 2018 that we will be graduating from LDC. But the dependency on the RMG sector has not been reduced even a bit after seven years. Why is that?”

Asked whether the graduation from LDC be postponed, the special assistant to the chief adviser said, “We have not reached the decision as yet. We have to sit with the business persons and owners of RMG industries. It’s not possible to confirm anything right now.”

“The things are not completely in Bangladesh’s hands. But we can appeal to reconsider the graduation with proper reasons and a credible outline. We are going to do that,” he added.

Economic Relations Department (ERD) secretary Shahriar Quader Siddique, Financial Institution Department (FID) secretary Nazma Mobarek, two additional secretaries of the Finance Division Munshi Abdul Ahad and Mohammad Abu Yusuf were present at the briefing.