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Saifur puts accent on reducing ADB conditionalities

BSS, Shanghai, China
Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman yesterday stressed the need for reducing policy conditionalities in the operation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Addressing the 35th annual meeting of the bank here, the minister said ADB should be more realistic in framing, sequencing and pacing of policy reforms in its programmes.
"While such policy reforms are needed, it has also to be kept in mind that each country faces its own unique challenges and constraints," he said adding, realities of a specific country must be duly taken into account while proposing policy reforms in the bank's projects and programmes.
Saifur Rahman, who is also a governor of the bank, said even though important and necessary, ADB should "resist the temptation to address" all the thematic priorities it has been following in each of its programmes and projects. This will help make the project design less complicated and easy to implement and monitor the projects, he said.
Praising ADB operations in Bangladesh Since 1973, Saifur Rahman said the bank has made laudable contribution to country's development, particularly in the areas of physical infrastructure and human development.
He said Bangladesh deeply appreciates the guiding spirit of flexibility and understanding of ADB, a reliable development partner of the country.
The finance minister welcomed the recent creation of a new South Asia Regional Department and extended support to the bank's policy of strengthening roles and functions of its resident missions.
Mentioning the special theme of regional cooperation in this year's annual report of the ADB, Saifur Rahman hoped the bank will effectively play its role in this regard as a broker and catalyst.
Turning to some major challenges, Bangladesh is confronting at present, the finance minister said the present government came to power only seven months ago with a strong political mandate to build a prosperous country free from poverty and corruption and promote good governence, protect human rights, reform policies and institutions and initiate pro-poor and environment-friendly policies.
He said the preparation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) was in the final stage, on the basis of which a medium-term strategy will be adopted for development activities of the country.
The finance minister said against the back-
drop of the sluggish global economy and depressed investment climate on the domestic front along with the burden of mounting public debt, the new government had to start with declining reserve of foreign exchange, export earnings and industrial output.
He said the government took a number of measures to reactivate the economy and initiate reforms in important sectors following the September 11 shock, which has further decreased our economic growth.
The Bangladesh economy is now projected to grow by around five per cent in the coming fiscal despite the deceleration in the global economy, he said.
Saifur said the government is committed to enhancing good governance, restoring macroeconomic stability and reforming state-owned enterprises.
He said the government is committed to giving the private sector a greater role to play and firm to strengthening the local government and support women empowerment.
The minister said poverty reduction remains high on development agenda of the government.
He hoped that the ADB assistance to Bangladesh would be increased to an appropriate level to reach the shared goal of poverty reduction.