BNP chief Khaleda Zia yesterday made a new demographic vision for the country that would render a negative population growth, a debacle that many of the Scandinavian countries and Japan are grapplingwith.

She mentioned the plan to attain zero population growth for the country by 2030 in her 16-point vision 2030, which was unveiled during delivery of her "budget thoughts”.

Experts, however, said zero population growth would be bad for Bangladesh and it was not a practical idea.

Prof AKM Nurun Nabi of population science department of Dhaka University said it was quite impossible for Bangladesh considering the present situation.

“There is a concept of zero population growth. But we need stability in population growth and it would not bring any good for us if it renders negative population growth in the name of making zero population growth,” he said while talking to The Daily Star.

According to different studies, Japan has zero percent natural birth increase and is expected to lose 21 percent of its population by 2050, shrinking its population to 100.6 million from 127.8 million. It is expected to face a crisis of working people then.

The Scandinavian countries are also facing the same problem and it affects growth and security.

The BNP chief saw Bangladesh as a higher middle-income country by 2030. She emphasised the need for addressing infrastructure deficiencies and ensuring investmentfriendly environment for direct investments.

Ensuring optimum generation and supply of electricity within the quickest possible time, sustainable strategy for addressing climate change challenges, effective independent and neutral judiciary to ensure justice and rule of law, strengthening local government institutions, extraction and optimum use of gas, oil, coal and other mineral resources, stringent steps to curb corruption, and seizing all opportunities for progress and prosperity were also mentioned among others in her vision2030.