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“Creating complexities is not a credit. You have to cast off this type of attitude,” the Prime Minister said as she took stock of the country’s economic situation in a high-level meeting with the economic points-men at the Prime Minister’s Office.

She presided over the review meeting on ‘Fiscal management and economic situation’. Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Planning Minister AK Khandaker, advisers to the Prime Minister HT Imam and Mashiur Rahman, Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman, Cabinet Secretary Abdul Aziz, Principal Secretary MA Karim, Planning Secretary Habibullah Majumder, NBR Chairman Nasiruddin Ahmed and ERD Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan were present.

Finance Secretary Mohammad Tareq presented the fiscal management and economic situation of the country for the first half of the current financial year.

The Prime Minister mentioned that many people from home and abroad were interested in investing in Bangladesh, but bureaucratic tangles often discouraged them when they came to make investment in the country.

In this connection, she particularly said that the non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) were very much interested in investing in the country.

“But often they had to face various types of problems to complete their process,” she said on a note of resentment.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister Abul Kalam Azad said that the Prime Minister asked the officials to work for the welfare of the country’s masses of people for which the present government was voted to power.

Hasina, however, expressed her deep satisfaction over the first six months’ performance in the country’s economy. “The overall situation is very good,” she said.

She underscored the need for increasing the revenue collection to make the country stronger on the economic front. She suggested checking the lifestyle of a person and his/her source of income to catch the tax-dodgers and rope them onto the tax net.

Regarding the revival of the jute sector, the Prime Minister blamed the previous BNP-Jamaat alliance government for destroying the ‘golden fibre’ of Bengal through knocking down industrial units.

She noted that the demand of jute and jute goods was rapidly increasing on the international market. “We have to look into this matter.”

The PM also asked the government officials to provide better services to the jute farmers so that they could feel encouraged in growing jute.

She also accused the BNP-Jamaat alliance government of politicising the whole public administration and said that’s why the administration was now so much weak.

The PM asked the government officials concerned to scale up activities for the rural development and enhance the living standard of the people in rural areas.

The meeting drew the conclusion that the macro-economy of the country was going well, despite all odds.