ADB launches new strategy to help Bangladesh boost competitiveness

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has launched a new country partnership strategy (CPS) for Bangladesh to boost competitiveness, employment, green growth and social protection.

The CPS, which would be continued for five years until 2025, will help Bangladesh realise its aspiration of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2031 through increased public and private investments in the next five years, ADB said in a statement today.

It will also support rapid socioeconomic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, it said.

During this period, ADB will increase its lending operations to $10 billion to $12 billion, from $9.6 billion in the past 5 years, the statement read.

"Sustained growth and appropriate policy measures have helped Bangladesh achieve good development outcomes. Moving forward, the country's industry and export base need diversification," said ADB Director General for South Asia Kenichi Yokoyama.

"Diversification in manufacturing and export items, such as agricultural products, information and communication technology, light engineering, and pharmaceuticals, together with increased competitiveness and access to new markets, will be critical in recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic, sustaining rapid economic growth, and generating substantial employment."

ADB will further expand its private sector operations in Bangladesh and continue to leverage a high level of co-financing with other development partners. Improving the banking sector, the ease of doing business, business environment, and investment climate will help accelerate private sector development and promote economic diversification, according to the statement.

The CPS also envisages enhancing ADB operations to support climate change adaptation and mitigation, and disaster risk management to address the country's high vulnerability to climate events and other natural disasters, in line with the Paris Agreement, it said.

A holistic approach to integrate climate change will be applied to all operations while expanding programs to directly address climate change impacts through integrated management of water, river, and coastal areas, it added.