Kamal urges developed, developing nations to extend hands of coop

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal today urged the developed and developing nations to extend their mutual and sincere hands of cooperation to remove differences among the nations..

"All will have to work hard to attain desired economic changes…….we'll have to go up the ladder taking alongside all, but not leaving behind anyone," he said.

The Finance Minister said this while delivering his speech at the high-level Asia-Pacific review meeting in Geneva today convened as part of preparations for the UNLDC-5, said a Finance Ministry press release.

The Finance Minister also urged all to make successful the UNLDC-5 to be held in Doha in January next year.

Kamal said the label of being an LDC could never be a matter of pride for a nation, but leading a life being a poor and thus die is a curse.

"We've immense potentials to get rid of poverty. By borne, we're not equal, but we've unique or different types of scopes and capabilities to improve our conditions," he said.

Kamal said if anyone looks back 200 years ago, then everyone can see that the developed countries did not have the current facilities and then the ratio of poor and non-poor was 80:20 which is completely reversed now.

"If anyone doesn't try to change his own fate, then none will help him or her to come out of poverty. But, if anyone earnestly wants to change his fate, then success will definitely come," he added.

The Finance Minister said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur had also perused the policy of making the country self-reliant not relying on others, which was later followed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

He said Bangladesh under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had attained massive and unprecedented development in different socio-economic fields over the last one era for which the UNCDP had given final recommendation to Bangladesh's graduation from the LDCs.

Kama said it's very much unfortunate that although the timeframe of Istanbul Programme (2011-2020) has come to an end, the target for bringing down the number of LDCs could not be met. Only four countries have made their graduation during this timeframe while five others are in the process of graduation.

Foreign Minister of Malawi Eisenhower Mkaka, under Secretary General, high representative and UNLDC-5 Secretary General Courtenay Rattray, under Secretary General and executive secretary of ESCAP and Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana spoke, among others, at the meeting.

All of the global leaders in the meeting affirmed their pledge to make the UNLDC-5 to be held in Doha in January next year a success through framing and implementing proper working strategies, recovering the COVID-19 affected economies and facing the climate change related impacts.