Bangladesh's poverty rate falls to 18.7 pct despite pandemic, geopolitical risk

DHAKA, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Despite the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and the geopolitical risk, the poverty rate for Bangladesh has dropped to 18.7 percent in 2022 from 24.3 percent in 2016, according to the latest Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data.

The national statistical agency published its Household Income and Expenditure Survey on Wednesday, pointing out that Bangladesh's extreme poverty rate decreased to 5.6 percent.

The previous BBS survey in 2016 put the poverty rate at 24.3 percent and the extreme poverty rate at 12.9 percent.

Planning Minister MA Mannan said the South Asian country's poverty rate marked a significant fall despite the worries that the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict would deal a big blow to Bangladesh's achievements.

However, experts said earlier that 50 years of Bangladesh's success in poverty alleviation disappeared as at least 20 million people fell below the poverty line during the pandemic.

They said a significant share of 40 million people engaged in informal employment lost their jobs due to the pandemic and price hike of essentials amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

They believed the income of a large section of 165 million Bangladeshi people has decreased and the local currency has also depreciated, pushing many lower and middle-income people below the poverty line.