Bangladesh will not face Sri Lanka-type economic crisis, assures PM Sheikh Hasina

In an interaction with ANI a day before her four-day visit to India, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that currently the world as a whole was facing challenges that were not restricted only to Bangladesh.

"Our economy is still very strong. Though, we faced this Covid-19 pandemic, now the Ukraine-Russia war. That has its effect here. But in the debt rate, Bangladesh always pays timely all the debts. So our debt rate is very low," she said.

"In the context of Sri Lanka, our economic trajectory and the development, it is (planned) very, very calculatively," Hasina added.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister asserted that because of this measured approach, her country was secure on the economic front.

"Bangladesh did not take any loan unless it was sure that it would benefit from the project undertaken," she said.

"I think the whole world is facing an economic problem. We are also. But yes there are some people who raise this issue. Bangladesh will be Sri Lanka, this and that. But I can assure, no, that will not happen. Because we... all our development plans, what we prepare and we implement, always we see that what would be the return? How people would be the beneficiary? Otherwise, I don't take any project (for) just spending money," she told ANI.

Sheikh Hasina said that in Bangladesh, whenever the government considers any loan, it is a clear policy to estimate what would be the return for the country on the completion of the project.

"How our economy will develop? And the people will be beneficiaries, that is the priority. So that way we are taking all the plans, programmes. Unnecessary we don't spend any money," she added.