Thrust on encouraging local industries

FE Report | Published: August 06, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Commerce Advisor Hossain Zillur Rahman said that the just-concluded local government elections have shown that the people of the country have full confidence and belief in the democratic process.

Terming it a 'huge confidence boost' for the nation Zillur, credited the present government's initiatives intended for holding a fair election like reforming the process of preparing the voter list, which he believed has made it a success.

"This has proved the present government's initiatives regarding the holding of a fair election as fruitful," he told a gathering of reporters after attending a roundtable on the outcome of a Harvard Conference on 'Bangladesh in the 21st century' held at Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) Monday.

"Now, we are confident of holding the Upazilla elections and other upcoming elections peacefully and fairly," he added.

"The political parties were also skeptical about holding an election under the emergency situation. But now, they should come forward and cooperating with us as we believe that all the problems and mutual differences can be removed through proper dialogue," he observed.

Earlier, the Commerce Advisor in his speech identified three major challenges lying ahead for the nation, which he referred as repositioning democracy, repositioning the national vision and repositioning global presence.

"Instead of banking on fragmented victory; we should now take a more holistic approach," he affirmed.

Stressing the need to encourage local industries, which are not yet export oriented, Zillur said, "Our focus of expanding the overseas trade and exports should involve not only today's exporters, but also tomorrow's exporters".

"One great lesson that the food crisis of the year 2007/08 has made us learn is the importance of agriculture, that there is no way to neglect agriculture at the cost of industrial growth," Zillur observed.

"New economic frontiers are now ushering for the country. Bangladesh is now building ships and exporting them to markets like Europe. Many other industries like pharmaceuticals, plastic, leather and shoes have posted a huge export growth in the recent times," he said.

"Throughout the last few decades, our focus has been to ensure the access of education. But now, the time has come to elevate the quality of that education at all levels," Zillur, who is also in charge of Ministry of Education affirmed.

President of BEI Farooq Sobhan, Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Bangladesh Geeta Pasi and Managing Director of Citibank NA Mamun Rashid among others also spoke on the occasion.