Poverty alleviation reaches 90m in eight years, claims Muhith

Nearly 90 million people have been alleviated from poverty line in the last eight years, claims Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday.

"We've brought around 90 million people out of poverty line. But we need to keep it in mind that still 30 million people are below the poverty line," he said.

The minister came up with the comments while speaking at the concluding session of the three-day Envoys' Conference at a hotel in Dhaka.

Muhith also said the country’s main economic policy remains to be poverty removal and within 10 to 15 years, poverty level will come down to seven per cent.

A UNB report states that  finance minister said Malaysia has the best performance in removing the poverty as it has brought down its poverty level to seven per cent.

"We had a notion that it's enough if we can bring down the poverty level to 14-11 per cent. But after the example of Malaysia, we now think we must cut down our poverty level to 7 per cent. So poverty removal continues to be the economic policy for the next 10-15 years of the Bangladesh government, no matter which one is in power."

He said poverty removal is Bangladesh's economic policy, not poverty alleviation.

"Because if the poverty is removed, the domestic market and demand will be expanded and that is what is now happening in Bangladesh."