Dhaka: Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed today expressed his 'reasonable comfort' with the current state of the country's economy. "I'm comfortable from the economic side. We're more or less, a bit confident," he conveyed to reporters after presiding over a meeting of the Advisers Council Committee on Government Purchase at the Bangladesh Secretariat.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, Dr Ahmed critiqued the current methodologies for measuring poverty in recent surveys. Referencing Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, he remarked, "He once noted that complex tools aren't always necessary to measure extreme poverty - it can often be identified by simply observing the people's faces and conditions."
Addressing concerns about inflation, Dr Ahmed stated that Bangladesh has successfully reduced the rate from 11-14% to approximately 8%. "If we could bring it down to 4%, we would be truly delighted," he added. When questioned about the possibility of a new pay scale for government employees, Dr Ahmed responded, "I'll look into it . perhaps before I leave for the United States."