The 7th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) will focus on creating skilled manpower through appropriate education, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said Thursday, reports UNB.
He was speaking at the 1st National Steering Committee meeting for preparing the plan at the NEC conference room at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar.
"We'll have to enhance productivity to increase the growth. In order to raise productivity, every citizen of the country would have to be productive," he said.
PM's Economic Affairs Adviser Dr Moshiur Rahman, GED member of the Planning Commission Dr Shamsul Alam and Planning Division Secretary Bhuiyan Shafiqul Islam spoke at meeting.
The theme of the 7th Five-Year Plan would be 'Accelerating Growth: Empowering Every Citizen.'
An economist panel headed by country's renowned economist Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud, has already been formed to give necessary guidelines for formulating the draft document of the 7th Plan while some 28 subject-based background studies would be conducted to prepare the draft document of the plan.
The draft of these background studies would be finalised by this November.
The meeting decided to prepare the draft document of the 7th Plan by next year.
Kamal said human resource development and the education sector would truly be given highest importance in the upcoming plan.
Referring to a study Kamal said that Bangladesh gets $14.2 billion as remittance from some 86 lakh expatriate Bangladeshis whereas some 32 lakh Philippine expatriates send some $ 31 billion as remittance to their country.
Speaking on the occasion, PM's Economic Affairs Adviser Dr Moshiur Rahman said that in the current market economy, Bangladesh has been gradually integrated with the economy of the other countries.
In this context, he said that the issue of regional economic cooperation would have to be clearly brought in the 7th Plan.
"The strategy for raising regional economic cooperation among the South Asia and South East Asia would have to be shown in the 7th Plan," said the PM's Adviser.
