RBL holds seminar on 'micro finance'
Sunday, 10 January 2010
FE Report
Rapport Bangladesh Limited (RBL) organised a seminar on 'Does Micro Finance Alleviate Poverty? Borrowers Response' at the RBL office in the city Saturday, said a press release.
Chaired by RBL Chairman and Managing Director Dr M Mosharraf Hossain, the seminar was attended, among others, by former adviser Dr Shoaib Ahmed and Dhaka University (DU) Prof Ashraf Uddin Chowdhury as the chief guest and the special guest respectively.
Dr Mohammad Ziaul Haque of Monash University, Australia presented the keynote paper, while Prof Muhammad Mahboob Ali of Atish Dipankar University of Science and Technology (ADUST) took part in the discussion on the keynote paper.
Dr Haque said that the effective interest rate charged by micro-credit providers was around 31 per cent, which was very high.
Prof Ali said that the present government was trying to curb high interest rate and he found that BRAC and ASA was doing good.
Prof Chowdhury described that there were a lot of ways to find out whether relative poverty or hard core poverty had decreased.
Dr Ahmed said that an holistic approach should be adopted in defining poverty elimination.
He also commented that after the liberation Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) as well as other commercial banks had also tried to curb the poverty level.
Dr Hossain argued that micro-credit was one of the ways to reduce poverty but it was not main means in doing so.
Rapport Bangladesh Limited (RBL) organised a seminar on 'Does Micro Finance Alleviate Poverty? Borrowers Response' at the RBL office in the city Saturday, said a press release.
Chaired by RBL Chairman and Managing Director Dr M Mosharraf Hossain, the seminar was attended, among others, by former adviser Dr Shoaib Ahmed and Dhaka University (DU) Prof Ashraf Uddin Chowdhury as the chief guest and the special guest respectively.
Dr Mohammad Ziaul Haque of Monash University, Australia presented the keynote paper, while Prof Muhammad Mahboob Ali of Atish Dipankar University of Science and Technology (ADUST) took part in the discussion on the keynote paper.
Dr Haque said that the effective interest rate charged by micro-credit providers was around 31 per cent, which was very high.
Prof Ali said that the present government was trying to curb high interest rate and he found that BRAC and ASA was doing good.
Prof Chowdhury described that there were a lot of ways to find out whether relative poverty or hard core poverty had decreased.
Dr Ahmed said that an holistic approach should be adopted in defining poverty elimination.
He also commented that after the liberation Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) as well as other commercial banks had also tried to curb the poverty level.
Dr Hossain argued that micro-credit was one of the ways to reduce poverty but it was not main means in doing so.