World Bank asks B'desh to develop more special zones

By Serajul Islam Quadir

DHAKA (Reuters) - The World Bank has asked Bangladesh to develop more special industrial zones in order to achieve the millennium development goal to halve the poverty level by the end of 2015, a senior official said on Sunday.

The government should focus further on developing more special economic zones to create jobs, the official quoted World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who arrived Dhaka on Saturday for a two-day visit, as saying.

After having met Mirza Azizul Islam, finance adviser to Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, on Saturday, Zoellick visited the Dhaka export processing zone (EPZ) at Savar, near the capital, on Sunday.

Zoellick was accompanied by Praful C. Patel, the World Bank Vice President for South Asia, and Xian Zhu, the bank's Bangladesh country director.

"He seemed impressed over the contribution of the zones (to the country's economy) and agreed that economic activities at the EPZs have an important impact on the poverty reduction initiatives of the government," said Brigadier-General Ashraf Abdullah Yussuf, executive chairman of the state-run Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority.

About half of Bangladesh's more than 140 million people still live below the poverty line, or less than a U.S. dollar a day, officials said.

Yussuf informed the team that the country's eight EPZs were contributing 18 percent to the national export earnings and offering employing more than 200,000 people.

Presently about 270 enterprises are operating in the zones making an investment of $1.8 billion.