Special initiatives taken to create employment in rural areas: Salehuddin

Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed has said the government has taken various special initiatives to create employment in rural areas to help boost the economy.

"The interim government has taken various steps to keep the production process at mills and factories operational and creating more employment," he said in an interview with BSS.

"After assuming office, we've tried to create employment opportunities especially on how to provide support to the small and medium enterprises as this sector can create huge employment opportunities," he said.

Salehuddin Ahmed, also the former central bank governor, said since there were some problems regarding financing to this sector, the Bangladesh Bank has already been directed so that they lend more loans to the CMSMEs since they have much more significance to the national economy.

"Besides, smaller projects have been undertaken in the ADP to create rural employment like in local infrastructures, bridges and in culverts, and local environmental projects which could facilitate more job creation," he said.

Citing that the country's economy has made more or less a turnaround, the finance adviser said dynamism has already been infused into the economy although the private sector is pursuing 'wait and see' approach to some extent.

"But they didn't make a sudden halt. They are waiting for more support, especially financial support. We're also simplifying access to finance, tax procedures, allowing more imports through opening up of LCs, import of machineries," he said.

Mentioning that some steps have already been taken against the money launderers, Salehuddin said the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Bangladesh Bank are working to unearth the incidents of money laundering since many big companies are involved in it.

Apart from this, he said the taskforce concerned has been working to this end and they are collecting information from various sources.

"The process will take some time since financial crime is a technical issue. We're also sorting out where the laundered money had gone either in Singapore or in other destinations. If we don't follow the legal procedures, then we can't get support from foreign countries. A British company will help us to this end in technical aspects while others have also offered us support," he added.

The finance adviser said that the government has already started the operations for recovering and bringing back the laundered money while investigations are going on against some 11 to 12 big companies to this end.