UNB :
Terming the Ukraine-Russia war as meaningless Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday said only arms producers are profitting from the conflict.
“…this war is meaningless. Because we are witnessing that only the arms producers are making profits. The lives of the general people are endangered,” she said.
The prime minister said this while inaugurating Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Centennial Technical Training Center in Tungipara and 23 other technical training centres in various upazilas across the country.
The programme was held at Osmani Memorial Auditorium while the PM joined virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban.
Hasina said that this war comes with sanctions and counter-sanctions threatening the global economy.
“Developed countries are facing severe problems. They have now started to save electricity and fuel oil, they are in anxiety about food security and taking various steps for that,” she said.
The premier said that countries like Bangladesh which have started a journey towards a specific goal to become developed is facing severe hurdles due to this war.
“This is very much regretful. But we must not stop our advancement,” she said.
The PM mentioned that the war struck when the world was facing coronavirus pandemic and resultant economic recession.
“To save the fuel oil all countries have taken various types of initiatives and we are also following that,” she said.
Hasina put emphasis on building skilled manpower as Bangladesh has a huge number of young population.
“We are working on that. We want to build skilled manpower through providing them training aiming to continue the pace of development.”
The prime minister said that it’s very much normal that the foreign exchange reserves will sometimes be more and sometimes less.
“There are some people who are making hue and cry over this issue. I think it is enough if we have reserves for procuring three months’ food,” she said.
But she said that the country should reduce its dependency on others for food items.
“We have to increase our own food production. We have fertile lands, we can produce food easily. We have to adopt modern technology for not only producing food but also preserve those,” she said.
She emphasised on setting up new industries for food processing purpose which can meet the domestic demands and earn foreign currency through exporting those.
“For having foreign exchange we must not be dependent on the remittance only, we have to increase our export items through diversification and getting new markets,” she added.
The premier asked the authorities concerned to look into the demands of the new markets and produce those to export them.
“That means, we will have to give more attention to export-oriented foreign exchange earnings,” she said.
Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry Barrister Anisul Islam Mahmud, Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training (BMET) director general Shahidul Alam and Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment secretary Ahmed Munirus Saleheen also spoke at the programme.
A documentary on the technical training centres was screened at the programme.
