The Word Bank’s Chief Economist Kaushik Basu has described Bangladesh’s economic progress as astonishing.
He said it was difficult to feel the same way 10 years ago about Bangladesh, which is now in the top league of nations with high growth rates.
As a Bengali, he is all praise for the achievement made by Bangladesh.
But there was no room for complacency, said this renowned academic, and advised policy-makers to be ever alert about maintaining the current trend.
Basu, who got his PhD under economics Nobel laureate Amarta Sen, made these remarks to bdnews24.com and a television channel at the World Bank Group office in Peru’s capital Lima during the annual WB-IMF meeting.
Born in Kolkata in 1952, Basu studied economics in Delhi’s prestigious St Stephen’s College and at the London School of Economics.
He did his doctoral thesis under Amartya Sen on Sen’s ‘social choice’. He has been advisor to several of the UN’s multinational institutions.
He has also taught in well-known Indian and US institutions, authored several books and was a regular columnist for the Hindustan Times and the BBC.
A Cornell University professor of economics, Basu had taken leave to join the Indian government under former prime minister Manmohan Singh.
After serving as the Chief Economic Advisor to India’s Ministry of Finance, Basu moved to the World Bank as its chief economist, the first Indian to hold that post.
In a brief interview, he spoke about his high expectations of Bangladesh.
Basu, who had once worked at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said he was happy with the country’s overall economic achievement and particularly in social sectors such as education, health and human development.
He told bdnews24.com he would visit Bangladesh in December.
At the request of the Bangladesh Bank, he would deliver a series of lectures on Bangladesh-India relations, regional economy, and politics.
The programme, to be held in Dhaka from Dec 15 to 16, would be inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
