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Published on October 20, 2014
"The Agreement on Security Cooperation between the Government of the United Arab Emirates and the Government of People's Republic of Bangladesh" was okayed at a regular cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hussain Bhuiyan briefed reporters.
He said the deal will be penned during the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to the UAE.
The cabinet secretary said another deal titled "Agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners" is also expected to be signed between the two countries during the visit of the Prime Minister.
He said that a Home Ministry team is already in the UAE to finalise the second agreement.
He said the cabinet also endorsed a proposal for signing of a deal between Bangladesh and Kuwait governments on military cooperation in training and other fields.
Bhuiyan said the cabinet was apprised of the visit of a Bangladesh delegation led by the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources to South Korea on August 27-29.
Besides, the annual report relating to the activities of the ministries and divisions in 2013-14 fiscal was placed at the meeting.
The cabinet secretary said the meeting expressed its satisfaction over the annual report on activities of different ministries and divisions.
He said that the report highlighted that the per capita income, revenue collection, inflation, reserve showed positive trend in the 2013-14 fiscal compared to the previous fiscal.
He said that the per capita income reached to $1190 in FY 13-14 compared to $1044 in FY 12-13, while the export earnings witnessed an 11.69 percent growth in FY 13-14.
The overall revenue collection showed a 8.35 percent growth at the end of FY 13-14, while the foreign currency reserve totalled $21.508 billion at the end of FY 13-14 with a 40.44 percent growth.
Bhuiyan said that the exchange rate remained stable in the last fiscal year while the point-to-point inflation rate came down to 6.97 percent in FY 13-14 from 8.06 percent in FY 12-13.
The ADP utilization rate in FY 13-14 reached to 93.11 percent with expenditure of Taka 59,580 crore. Some 239 development projects were completed in the last fiscal out of the earmarked 242 projects.
He said that in the last fiscal, the expenditure in the social safety net programmes has increased to TK 26,654 crore, the agricultural production has increased alongside progress in use of ICT, the mobile phone users increased to 11.62 crore up to June 2014, the internet users increased to 3.89 crore while tele-density 77.91 percent.
The cabinet secretary also said that there has been marked improvement in the health, education, communication and power sector in the last fiscal.
He said that some 69 State Owned Enterprises (SoEs) turned out to be profitable in FY 13-14, while 19 became loosing concerns.
The Cabinet also made a set of recommendations that include further strengthening
on inter-ministerial meeting to expedite policy and programmes, capacity building of the implementing agencies to expedite ADP utilization alongside extensive monitoring, taking more initiative to fill up the vacant posts, load management of power and tackle misuse, imparting training to more volunteers for tackling natural disasters, creating more awareness about controlling food adulteration and extending the e-tendering activities.
Besides, he said, the cabinet also recommended holding public hearing up to upazila level to hear the problems of mass people.
Ministers and state ministers concerned attended the meeting, while secretaries concerned were present.
-Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS)
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