Celebration today for earning eligibility

All is set to celebrate today the historic achievement of the current government in making Bangladesh eligible for graduating from the group of Least Development Countries (LDCs), reports BSS.

The Committee for Development Policy (CDP) of the United Nations on March 15 officially declared the eligibility of Bangladesh for graduating from the LDCs and handed over a formal letter in this regard to Bangladesh's Permanent Representative to the UN Masud Bin Momen on the following day.

Last year in October, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in a report projected that Bangladesh would qualify primarily to graduate from the LDCs list in this March as the country already fulfilled all the three criteria to become eligible for the developing country status.

The three criteria are Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, Human Assets Index (HAI) and Economic Vulnerability Index (EVI).

According to the UN's graduation thresholds, GNI per capita of a country should be $1,230 or above. Bangladesh's GNI per capita was $1,610 at the end of 2016-17 financial year.

For the HAI, a country must score 66 or above and for EVI 32 or below. Bangladesh scored 72.9 and 24.8 in the two indices respectively.

Bangladesh, however, will have to maintain the thresholds for the three indices till the country's final graduation from the LDC category, which the UN will declare in 2024.