Separate research fund in next five-year plan: Mustafa Kamal

The government has decided to set up a separate fund to support research activities aimed at producing necessary and accurate inputs for the national planning exercise.
"The government will include a provision for research fund in the next Seventh Five Year Plan that begins in July next," said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal while addressing a seminar on 'Challenges facing Economic Research in Bangladesh.'
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) organised the seminar in association with the Bangladesh Economists' Forum (BEF) at the BB Training Academy at Mirpur.
Renowned economist and researcher Prof Nurul Islam, who attended the programme as the keynote speaker, highlighted the urgency for developing human resources as well as strengthening research institutes in order to remove the dearth of quality data.
Presided over by former Finance Minister M. Syeduzzaman, the seminar was addressed among others by BB governor Dr. Atiur Rahman, former president of Bangladesh Economic Association Mohiuddin Alamgir and Policy Research Institute Executive Director Ahsan H Mansur. Economists, bankers, academics, representatives from various government and non-government organisations and researchers took part in the discussion.
Prof Nurul Islam, also the first Deputy Chairman of the Bangladesh Planning Commission, stressed the urgency of setting up some research centres of excellence to produce quality researchers and scholars to cater to the national needs.  
The well-known research scholar also identified fund constraints, absence of appropriate institutes and inadequate number of qualified scholars as some of the factors that hinder proper research in the country.
Dwelling on the country's agricultural development and the government's plan to export rice, he found the lack of adequate and reliable data to compare various parameters with those of neighbouring India and Thailand, which are also exporting rice to the world market.
He lamented the lack of proper information on manufacturing sector, especially in case of SMEs and ready-made garment industry.
The celebrated economist expressed his doubts about the accuracy and quality of data on the basis of which all national statistics on GDP, poverty, etc are calculated and major decisions are taken.
The Planning Minister, who attended the programme as the chief guest, also admitted that all data were not reliable. But he said the government is trying its best to improve the situation.
He pointed out that the government is spending about 0.6 per cent of the country's GDP in research activities as against 0.9 per cent in India and 0.8 per cent in Malaysia.
"The USA spends the highest 1.8 per cent of GDP for research and development," said the Planning Minister adding that the Bangladesh government plans to increase the figure to 1.00 per cent within 2-3 years.
He disclosed that special rebate would be announced in the SFYP for corporate houses which will contribute to the research fund to be floated from next fiscal.
In his long discussion on various aspects of research and generating reliable and quality data, Prof Nurul Islam also focussed on the quality of the country's higher education.
He regretted that most of the teachers remain busy in consultancy rather than imparting higher quality education. To overcome the problem, he, however,  pleaded for increasing the salary structure of the teachers.
Dr Atiur Rahman said the central bank has vigorously pursued strengthening of its in-house capability for surveys, research and analysis with new incentives including extensive higher training opportunities and higher weightage on publications for career advancement and so forth.
Besides partnering and liaising with local think-tanks and universities, the BB has also been inviting non-resident Bangladeshi experts from global organisations and foreign universities, to beef up the analytical strength of various policy initiatives, said the governor.

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