Published : 20 October 2026
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Updated : 20 October 2026, 01:54
Star Business Report
The government provided $4.12 billion in subsidies to the energy sector over the past eight months, Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, the prime minister’s adviser on finance and planning, said yesterday.
He also said nearly eight million people had fallen below the poverty line due to the previous government’s failure to take effective measures.
The current government is working to address three major challenges inherited from the past: a fragile economy, high inflation and a shortage of jobs for educated young people, he said.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Dashboard at the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) office in Dhaka, Titumir said Bangladesh had strong prospects of graduating from the Least Developed Country (LDC) category in 2029.
He expressed confidence that poverty would decline significantly through the effective implementation of social protection programmes, including the Family Card programme.
Nearly eight million people fell below the poverty line due to the previous government’s failure to take effective measures, the adviser said
The government is also working to create jobs by increasing investment in manufacturing, boosting domestic revenue collection without raising taxes, and increasing public spending on education and healthcare.
The ESG Dashboard is designed to assess compliance in the ready-made garment (RMG) sector. BGMEA President Mahmud Hasan Khan said the platform would help assess and improve the environmental, social and governance performance of member factories.
So far, 326 factories have submitted reports through the platform, but the number remains insufficient, he said.
Reporting through the platform would soon be made mandatory for BGMEA members to protect the industry as a whole. If necessary, BGMEA and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) would work together to enforce the requirement, he added.
M Masrur Reaz, chairman of Policy Exchange Bangladesh, said moving beyond conventional compliance towards sustainability had become an urgent necessity for the sector’s long-term development.