7th 5-Year Plan eyes 7.4pc growth
12.9 million jobs to be created during these five years
Setting an average 7.4 per cent growth target, the General Economic Division (GED) of the Planning Commission will place the Seventh Five-Year Plan (SFYP) before the National Economic Council (NEC) today.
NEC chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will preside over the meeting to be held at the NEC conference room in the citys Sher-e-Bangla Nagar. The SFYP (2016-20) aims at empowering people by creating employment and skill-development opportunities, supplying credit for SME development and giving people many other ways to be productive.
Along with growth, the SFYP will emphasise social protection, urban transition and a sustainable development pathway resilient to disaster and climate change. The average growth rate has been set at 7.4 per cent over the entire plan period. The SFYP seeks to raise the GDP growth rate progressively from 6.5 per cent in FY2015 to 8 per cent by FY 2020.
An estimated 12.9 million jobs will be created during these five years, including 2 million jobs abroad for migrant workers. The SFYP also seeks to reduce poverty rate from 24.8 per cent to 18.6 per cent and extreme poverty to around 8.9 percent by FY2020.
The SFYP says, This flagship document will make a bridge between present and future for developing inclusive growth all over the country. Before preparing it, we made open conversation with every representative of our society. The key challenge for implementing 7th FYP is to increase the rate of investment from 28.9 per cent of GDP in FY2015 to 34.4 per cent of GDP by the end of the plan in FY2020, it adds. For this, balanced efforts are needed to reduce inflation to 5.5 per cent by FY2020. Strong performance is also needed in the balance of payments by promoting a strong and diversified export base. Again, foreign direct investment is expected to play a bigger role under the SFYP.
Total investment over these five years will amount to Tk. 31.9 trillion. The private sector will continue to play its dominant role, accounting for 77.3 per cent of total planned investment.
During the period, research expenditure will be increased from 0.6 per cent of GDP to 1 per cent of GDP. Again, public spending on social protection will be hiked from 2.02 per cent of GDP to 2.3 per cent of GDP by FY2020. The SFYP will stress on human resource development, enhancing social equity through inclusive growth and ensuring the sustainability of growth through continued macro-economic stability and protection of the natural environment.
