Bangladesh eligible for LDC graduation

Published : 17 Mar 2018, 15:59

Jagoroniya Desk

Bangladesh has fulfilled the eligibility requirements to graduate from ‘Least Developed Country’ to ‘Developing Country’ status.

The UN Committee for Development Policy (CPD) gave a letter announcing Bangladesh’s eligibility for graduation to the Bangladesh Permanent Ambassador to the UN Masud Bin Momen on Friday.

According to the UN press release, Bangladesh met the requirements in March, 2018.

Bangladesh has been on the UN Least Developed Countries (LDC) list since 1975.

As per the rules, a country is declared as a middle-income nation if that particular country can attain these criteria consecutively in three years.

Graduation depends upon meeting eligibility criteria scores in Gross National Income (GNI) per capita, the Human Assets Index (HAI) and the Economic Vulnerability (EVI) Index and other country-specific information.

According to the UN’s graduation thresholds set at the triennial review in 2015, gross national income (GNI) per capita of a country has to be $1,242 or above.

Bangladesh’s GNI per capita rose to $1,610 at the end of fiscal 2016-17.

The GNI per capita is the value of a country’s final income in a year, divided by its population.

It reflects the average income of a country’s citizens.

On the other two indexes — human assets and economic vulnerability — a country has to score 66 or above and 32 or below respectively.

Bangladesh’s score in the human assets index stood at 72.9 and in the economic vulnerability index 24.8, meaning the country meets all the criteria.

Once graduated, Bangladesh will not be eligible for support measures given to LDCs accorded by multilateral institutions such as the WTO.

Special and differential treatment for the LDC members will no longer be available to Bangladesh (in the form of market access, technical assistance, waivers from obligations, protracted implementation period in view of implementing obligations and commitments).

Source: dailysun

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